Boundaries
by Bibliotecaria.D
Summary: Blue doesn't know where they are.
1. Chapter 1

Blue doesn't know where they are.

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 **Title:** Boundaries

 **Warning:** Spoilers for Jurassic World, obviously. Discussion of (graphic?) injuries, and the viewpoint of a carnivore.

 **Rating:** PG-13

 **Continuity:** Jurassic World

 **Characters:** Blue, Delta, Echo, Owen Grady, Barry

 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

 **Motivation (Prompt):** Tumblr and feedback.

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 **Pt. 1**

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Raptors have _loyalty._ Limited, laser-focused connection to what is theirs and what is not defines their social bonds. Pack is self. Attack one of the pack, and you attack them all, and all will rally to defense.

Vague borders don't exist. Raptors have no sense of being on the same side despite any differences between you. Alliances are a human concept. The nebulous concept of future benefit goes beyond the scope of a raptor's brain, however intelligent. They have no imagination. They have memory and, straining, the formless stretch of intelligent thought required to learn behaviors and connect them to new concepts. Open a door in front of a raptor, and the raptor will remember what a door is and how you opened it. Show her a different door, and she will figure out how this one opens as well, because she knows that doors can be opened.

Then she will open the door for her pack.

Blue calls, forlorn. Her pack doesn't answer. The buildings sprawl around her in the night, smothered in not-Alpha's scent and the thick scent of prey fear. The doors are open, but her siblings don't follow her. Prey-sounds come from where Alpha is, but fresh in her mind is the head-shake, the small reply to her head-tilt and purrl. Alpha shook his head, and memory said in the back of her mind, ' _No, Blue.'_ She won't hunt the prey.

He is Alpha, and repetition has worn his peculiar sounds into her brain as deep as the chitter and honk of her siblings. He is not-the-same, pack leader in a straining edge-of-comprehension way formed by four squirming hatchlings learning _pack_ while Alpha inserted himself into the natural process. Not-Alpha didn't have Alpha's blurry sense of prey hanging around her. Not-Alpha sounded _right_. Not-Alpha seemed like Alpha.

But Not-Alpha wasn't Alpha. Alpha was warm hands and weird ways, prey-scent outside the walls and behind the bars, but he's been there since Blue poked through the shell. He doesn't feel as natural as not-Alpha, but raptors are smart. They can learn. And raptors aren't allies. You're either pack, or not-pack. There is no in-between.

Alpha put his bared fang down to help Blue, chittering his calm-cry, ' _Easy, easy.'_ Alpha didn't hurt the pack. Fences are a control method, but the pack is a relationship. The pack is trust. Alpha put his fang down. He didn't try to control them. He stretched out his hand like one of the pack uncertain of welcome, a sibling clicking at Blue, sidling close enough to touch-nuzzle with his hands, and he didn't hurt her. He took the strange thing off Blue's head, warm hands exactly the same as they were when the pack was in the ready-cages, and simple as that, Blue and Echo and Delta remembered learned behavior. He smelled of prey, but he always does. Nothing changed. In or out of the walls, hunt or not, they are still pack. He is her, she is him, they are them.

When Blue screamed _pack_ in not-Alpha's face, not-Alpha had _hurt the pack._ Not-Alpha was not pack, not-Alpha was threat-to-pack.

She heard her pack snarl at threat-to-pack, heard the whistle. _'Hunt. Attack.' She_ couldn't respond, but she heard. She heard the Alpha's fangs snap over the not-Alpha's roar, and her siblings howl. They defended her. Pack defended pack.

By the time she could move again, the pack was down. No one answered her call as she leapt to attack.

And then it is over, and she is hurt, a bruise throbbing on her side. Alpha shakes his head, and his hand closes and opens in a little gesture she knows as _'Go.'_ It's an order like they're inside the walls. Pack-time with Alpha is over, back to what she was doing. She turns and lopes away, calling for the pack.

There is no answer.

Loyalty pulls her two ways. Alpha is behind her (' _Go,'_ his hand says, his head shakes, and in the back of her mind, ' _No, Blue.'_ ) but the rest of the pack isn't answering. She pauses in the street, confused, and calls again. Her head cocks, listening for Alpha, for her siblings. For pack.

She does not know how to be alone.

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	2. Pt 2

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The place reeks of prey and fighting, but she has a strong nose. Blue sniffs them out.

She hears something, first. It's a little sound, a sound she doesn't know, but it ends in a tiny squawk. Rasp, gasp, and squawk. Repeat. It's a familiar sound buried among strange noises, and it says, _'Here. Here. Here.'_

Blue whirls around and lopes down the street, calling. Pack! She hears pack! Where is the pack?

 _'Here. Here. Here.'_

The smell of prey is strong, and she hesitates at the crossing, peering warily down the road toward where Alpha was. Prey carries fangs, sometimes. She isn't afraid, but she doesn't trust prey-with-fangs. A tilt of her head, a blink, and she lopes onward, calling for her pack.

 _'Here. Here. Here.'_

It's from pack, but the unfamiliar dragging wheeze garbles the sound. She's suspicious. The prey can make pack-noises from metal, sometimes, although the pack stopped falling for it when they were still hatchlings. Blue's desperate, however, too frantic for _pack_ to give in to unease.

 _'Here. Here. Here.'_

Too far. She cocks her head and steps back toward the crossing. The buildings are confusing her hearing. She's not used to hide-and-seek outside of the walls, yet. Her head cocks the other way, and she trots the opposite direction, back to where she started. When she's as close as she can find, she thrusts her snout into the air and trumpets, summoning her missing siblings.

 _'Pack!'_ she calls as loud as she can.

 _'Here,'_ squawks weakly nearby.

Blue turns her head from side to side, nostrils flaring. Not-Alpha scent everywhere, prey-smell, Alpha, the rough metal scent of Alpha's fang, and Other. It's dangerous to be in Other's territory, but she'll risk it. The Other is big but wounded. Blue is faster, even tired.

She breathes deep, tail slowly lashing back and forth. There. Her head jerks down, and alert eyes scan the buildings. There's a hole in the wall at chest-height. Snorts and snuffles go unanswered, but she has the scent now. She lowers her head and drops her jaw, pulling in air. It's coming from inside the building.

Delicately picking her way through splintered wood walls and shattered glass, she follows the scent. _'Pack?'_ she creels, peering through the hole.

Delta gurgles before letting her head drop, going back to panting. She's the source of the gasping wheeze. She tries to squawk, but pain twitches her hind claws and tail as she draws breath. She tries to rise, screeches, and flops back to the ground. Rapid, pain-erratic panting shows the irregular dip in her side where her ribcage won't expand, and one of her legs lays at an angle. Other wasn't the only one wounded fighting not-Alpha.

Blue crouches to jump lightly through the hall, crunching across knocked-over displays to investigate her sibling. She's still creeling the urgent, happy sound of _pack_. She nudges the prone raptor, overjoyed. Delta curves her neck off the ground to snap at Blue in return, too pained to share the reunion, but Blue yanks back, opening her mouth to roll her tongue in a croaking scree like they are playing.

Delta closes her eyes and rubs her face in the floor. The harsh panting hasn't slowed, and she only blinks dizzily at Blues insistent nuzzling. Blue backs up and trumpets, urging her to get up, but Delta grunts. She curls a lip up to show what she thinks of Blue whining at her, too. There will be snarling and slashes if Blue keeps harassing her.

But Blue can't leave pack behind. She jigs uncertainly, head twisting as she listens, smells, thinks, remembers.

Delta suddenly jolts, head popping off the floor in perfect sync to how Blue's head cocks.

Somewhere nearby, a raptor calls for help.

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	3. Pt 3

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Burnt skin almost covers Echo's scent. Blue eyes her and trills a hesitant sib-greeting, not entirely sure what to do.

Echo cries pitifully back at her. Black-scorched skin has cracked in places, revealing runny red flesh underneath. The white pustules of blisters pimple her skin in dense clusters, sheets of skin burnt and sliding over the cooked flesh underneath, plasma leaking clear here and tinged red with blood there. Her whole side is a mass of burns, and her head…

She keeps her head tipped to the side, her one good eye on Blue. The pain pulls heavily on the other side of her face, streaking in liquid, stinging agony, and shock has her pupil blown wide. Her balance is off. Everything is off. She's reeling. Echo stumbles as she tries to rush Blue, demanding comfort.

Who draws back, panicked. This is brand new. This is different. This is beyond Blue's experience. Distressed, she calls for help on reflex. She doesn't know what to _do._

Echo slaps a foreclaw at her, shrilling pain and pain and need and pain and _pack_.

Blue snarls back. The blue-marked raptor's neck snaps back into a tense S-shape, and both foreclaws brace up and apart, ready to attack.

Echo blinks, shrinking back. Her cries drop into a submissive noise, purrling low in her throat at the pack beta but building to a high-pitched whine in pain and growing fear. On reflex, her head swings to face Blue squarely, except the pain-swollen weight up and down her entire side sends her staggering as her tail swishes wildly to balance her. The weight isn't actually there; her tail compensates too far, and Echo falls sprawling.

Burnt skin tears more. Blood and plasma spill raw smell into Blue's nose, and she straightens, mouth closing with a _clup!_

This time when Echo cries, Blue steps forward to lay the side of her face alongside the unwounded side of her sibling's muzzle. The skin there stinks of smoke and charred fat, but it's only singed. The smell can't cover up the underlying scent of her sibling. They are still pack. She squawks a quiet _'here.'_

Echo immediately stills, crying and pained but comforted all the same by an overwhelming relief.

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	4. Pt 4

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Echo can't walk far, and Delta can't walk at all. This is a problem. They need to move. A roar somewhere within the maze of buildings announces that the big Other is in the area, still. One raptor can't hold territory against an Other that size. It might hunt her siblings, wounded as they are.

It's not safe. This isn't a den, or even the ready-cages. During the hunt, that was exciting. The pack surged out of the gates and into the world outside the walls, thrilled. They were free! No walls! They could run, hunt, and kill in the jungle outside that they'd smelled their whole lives!

Come morning, however, they've had enough. The lack of walls and bars and ready-cages twangs on their nerves like a tripwire continually signaling danger. The walls kept them in, but the raptors are intelligent enough to realize walls that kept them in also kept Others out. The prey-with-guns stayed out of their territory. Their bellies were always full. Everything was known, familiar, and predictable. It was often boring and surrounded by prey they couldn't hunt, all the memories connected to inside-walls are positive. Any positive associations they've made with outside-walls are blotted out by the pile of negatives.

Blue wants to go back to the walls, to the real den. She doesn't recognize anything here. When she thinks of safety, sleeping nests, and food, she gets a strong memory of walls. Alpha's hands, the chirrup of his voice. Warm hands.

It's not safe here. This isn't their territory. Alpha isn't here, and they're on their own. Blue doesn't know what to do. Out here, everything is uncertain, dangerous, and _painful_. Her whole body is aching, exhaustion leaden in her legs and bruise swollen on her side, but she can't rest because her siblings are worse off. A constant prickling wariness presses in around her, spurring her to restless pacing. She doesn't know these walls, and at any moment, Other or prey-with-fangs could attack her pack.

She's not any more used to fear than she is being alone, but one is worse than the other. She can't defend two siblings alone, but Blue can't abandon her pack. As much as the lure of the known den with its walls and bars pulls on her, tempting her back through the jungle, she can't leave her pack behind.

A mass of prey assembles out past the end of the road. She stands alert on the corner, barely moving as she listens to the noise of a herd in the distance. They're moving toward the vast salty smell of water far away. They're easy prey, many of them small and wounded. The smell entices her to hunt.

Echo barks an interrogative sound, followed by a growling moan. Blue turns back to the temporary nest.

Delta can't move, so they built it around her. Echo managed a couple trips, limping heavily, to retrieve mouthfuls of the soft skins Alpha wore. Blue trotted quick, nervous trips to the jungle to drag branches into the building. It's nothing like the nests in their den, earthy hollows swept together from leaves and branches under the trees, but Blue won't leave her pack for long. They're too vulnerable by themselves. It will have to do.

Delta continues to breath in shallow gasps, lying flattened on the ground. It looks unnatural compared to her normal curled sleeping position. Her leg swells. The puncture wounds from big teeth on her torso swell, weep pus, and turn hot and hard by midday. When Echo and Blue nudge her upright, she can't stand, and the last time they try to make her, she takes a bite out of Blue's shoulder. It hurts. Blue backs off for a while.

Echo can't curl up beside their sibling. She settles for an awkward position resting on her good side, but the pain makes sleep rare. The black skin on Echo's side peels. Blue tentatively licks at the oozing burns, and Echo cringes away, whining.

It's a hellish day. For all that her pack doesn't sleep well or often, Blue sleeps less. She walks restless patrols around the edge of their makeshift territory on the lookout for prey or Other. She's exhausted and irritable by nightfall, baring her teeth at the others. Echo is no better, but also exhausted by hours of pain on top of hours of hunting. Delta slips in and out of consciousness.

They need food. A mouthful torn out of prey here and there last night isn't enough to feed them. A raptor isn't able to actually think about a hypothetical comparison, but Blue prefers chasing prey over being fed through bars. Right now, however, she wants to be fed. The safety of the den is an alluring memory. She remembers the food. The safety.

And the water. Blue chases rats and finds carrion forgotten by the living prey during their stampede to the salt water. Two prey will feed her pack for the night, even if she has to drag the limp bodies all the way down the road to the nest. She can't drag water.

Delta rasps at her. _'Hungry.'_ Blue snarls back at her. She pushes the carrion toward her sibling, but it's too awkward. Delta can't twist her torso around enough to plunge her snout into the body, and attempting to jerk her head back to rip off the little pieces within reach hurts badly. Muscle contracts over broken bones, and Delta cries a pitiable sound. Tired and pained, she lays her head back and closes her eyes, giving up.

Blue screeches frustration and slaps her foreclaws down on the body, beating it angrily.

A minute later, Echo nips at her side until she moves, then sets to chewing at the belly of the prey. Blue screams a hunting cry out of angry helplessness and springs out of the nest in one bound, sprinting off into the night to find more carrion. Other is out here somewhere. She can smell it. It's found carrion, too.

She sticks close to the nest, eyes watching the darkness as she searches for carrion, stopping frequently to stand still, listen, and draw in long, quiet breaths. Her head makes quick, nervous movements, checking all around herself. Being on her own means she's as vulnerable as her siblings, and she knows it.

Echo is feeding Delta when Blue comes back. The blue-marked raptor drops the limb she's pulling and straightens, eyes dilating in surprised. Quiet chirring growls accompany scraps of prey dangling from Echo's jaws, and Echo rubs the good side of her face against Delta's until their crippled sibling opens her mouth. The scraps are accepted. Delta gulps them down. Echo trills and nuzzles her. Delta trills back, weary. Echo chirps before patiently chewing at the carrion, filling her jaws to repeat the ritual.

Blue remembers. She cocks her head to the side, watching. In her memory, warm hands stroke her head, rubbing thumbs down her muzzle, and Alpha hums his feeding-chirr as he gives them scraps of bloody meat. _'Hold on, hold on. Wait your turn. That's good. That's really good. You want more? Hold on, hold on…'_

Delta gives another hatchling trill, mouth gaping open. Her eyes are hardly open. Blue chirrs back on instinct, and dips down to tear into the carrion.

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	5. Pt 5

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Blue doesn't like water. She never has.

The others do, although neither of her surviving siblings liked it as much as Charlie had. Charlie had loved to swim, head and back eeling through the pond scum like a crocodile, wallowing in the mud by the shore. Delta just liked to play chomp-the-water when Alpha sprayed them down with the water-snake on hot days. Echo once snagged the water-snake through the bars and pulled a loop through, yanking gleefully against the prey trying to take it back from her as though it were the tug-of-war rope. Alpha stood up on the branches over the walls, watching and snorting amusement at the prey trying to take a raptor's toy away.

The other three raptors bit the water-snake full of little holes to kill it, but Blue stayed away. It bled water everywhere and didn't taste like food. She didn't like it.

She stayed away from the pond, too. The water trough in the ready-cages was always clean and full of fresh water. It smelled of prey and metal, not earth and frogs, but Charlie couldn't ambush her from the trough. She used to lurk in the water waiting to play whenever the pack came to drank. Blue outsmarted her. She drank in the ready-cages, safe from Charlie.

But Charlie is gone, vanished in an explosion of fire and too-loud sound. The ready-cages are inside the walls. Blue's not. The water out here doesn't have her sibling in it, and she likes it even less than the pond.

She hisses and stamps her foot in the puddle a last time. It rains often, sudden tropical storms, but the water on the streets drains away behind metal floor she can't dig through. That leaves her trekking into the jungle to get water, and the puddle's too far away. She can clumsily scoop some water into her mouth, but a raptor's mouth isn't designed to carry liquids. Loping back toward the nest lost most of the water down the sides of her jaw or her throat, and the tiny bit she managed to dribble into Delta's mouth isn't enough.

It's afternoon again. Echo and Blue fed Delta, but thirst has driven their crippled sibling to begging cheeps. She dryly rasps purrling hatchling trills at them, parched tongue poking out from between her teeth as she begs.

Echo can painfully limp to puddles in the jungle to drink, but she spends as much time resting as she does moving. Her skin has grown hot, the burns on her side and face stiff in places and slimy in others. She doesn't move unless Blue nips at her. Slinking low through the buildings takes more effort than it's worth for how much it hurts her.

Blue doesn't like to leave the nest unguarded, either. Other is still in the area, and she didn't dare leave the nest at all during the night, when she could smell the Other scavenging nearby. It means she has to go out during the day, however, and neither Echo nor Blue feel safe in daylight. They pause frequently, scanning the buildings suspiciously. They hear Other, out in the jungle somewhere, but it's not as likely to hunt them out in the open during the day. Maybe. She thinks, but she's not sure, so the pack is on high alert all the time.

The giant Other in the water worries Blue. It waits at the end of the road, growing hungrier and hungrier, and Blue barks rebuke at Echo if she limps that direction. Day or night, that Other is too dangerous to go near.

Instead, Blue tries to care for her pack alone. She's still fast and strong.

Right now, she's hunting water. Fast and strong isn't helping her much in this hunt.

She cautiously picks her way through the buildings. There are rooms that smell strongly of water, the scent slathered by stinging chemical reek. It fails to cover the spoor of many prey. She steals into one room and finds a shining wall, cool floors spotted with mold, and many white bowls of water in stalls like the ready-cages.

The stalls don't smell like Alpha. Blue doesn't want to go in them. She twitches and stamps, pacing in the long room and peering at the bowls of water. She's used to water troughs in the ready-cages, but this is not-the-same. It's sort of familiar, but not enough.

The blue-marked raptor's reflection paces her along the mirrors over the sinks. She stops and starts, staring at it, until she cautiously extends her nose to touch snouts with the stranger. A huffed breath clouds the shining wall, and her head jerks back at the white blotch. She curls her lip and flexes her foreclaws but gives another hesitant snort as she noses closer. Her nostrils snuffle nothing but cool, smooth wall.

She decides it's not pack or Other. Then she ignores it.

The pack needs water.

Finally, the skin of her neck flinching nervously, she bumps aside a stall door and stretches her head inside. Sniffing fills her nose with acrid chemical smell and prey-scent. Urine. Spoor. Mold. This isn't clean, fresh water, and it's only a tiny puddle at the bottom of the basic. It's still water, however, so she takes a step inside and dips her head down -

The bowl _roars_ , water shooting in a sudden whooshing spray.

Blue screeches, jumping backward so fast and far she slams into the wall, shattering a mirror and breaking the counter. Something cracks. More water sprays, this time smelling cleaner but shocking her with the unexpected blast, and killing claws slash futilely at the attack. Flailing causes her to lose her footing as water slicks the ground, and she falls in a scrambling slide on the floor. She slides partway into a stall and screams the high descending ripping sound of a velociraptor attack, except it's a bluff, a _'Get away or I'll attack!'_ shriek that just frightens her more as the room warps the noise into a panicky echo.

Out of instinct, she lashes out. High-pitched squeals hurt her head as her claws scrape thin metal. Her tail slaps the stall walls, a muffled _boom-boom-boom_ of metallic thunder, and she squalls in fear and anger. Frantic paddling of her hind claws roll her back to her feet in the narrow stall, but her tail swings right over the water bowl.

It roars, water whooshing.

Blue trumpets absolute panic, lunging forward out of the stall. Sliding across the floor, she bounces off the counter, careening in a sprint out of the room and its alarming, terrifying stalls.

She creels anxiously all the way back to the nest. The pack nuzzles and sniffs, rubbing their jaws against her everywhere they can reach as they check her over, just as worried. They heard her panic-call for help, but Delta couldn't move and Echo's fastest sprint is a lumbering plod. They purrl and bump her with their heads, and she rubs at them, too, butting under their chins and rubbing her jaw over them until they smell like her, she smells like them, the pack smells like pack. The familiarity calms her down enough to squawk back at them. ' _Here. Here.'_

As soon as they're assured _pack_ isn't threatened, they start snuffling at her. Delta cheeps, mouth opening and closing. Her eyes watch Blue in perfect trust. Echo trills hopefully. Neither of them can hunt. Delta needs water.

Blue tilts her head. Delta cheeps again. The blue-marked raptor chuffs, growling. More cheeping. Echo drop low to sniff at the corner of her mouth, trilling insistently. Water. Food.

Blue ventures back down the street.

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	6. Pt 6

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"Where?"

"There. There!"

"Where? I don't see - whoa, hold up. Yeah, I see her."

"What's she doing?"

In the distance, Blue straightens up, eyes flicking around the street. Only after watching and waiting does she relax. She ducks down, rootling her nose about in the destroyed store display. What hasn't been knocked onto the street by the dinosaur fight of three days ago is now a scattered mess from a raptor pawing through it. She straightens again, watchful, then moves on to another spot further inside the store. This time, her tail whips as though she's brought down a kill.

The two men up on the control building landing pad frown.

"Only thing she's likely to get there is dead people. Raptors like fresh meat." Barry glances at Owen. "What's she up to?"

Owen is looking through his binoculars again. "Don't know. You're right, though. She should be off chasing the paras." He lowers the binoculars to look at the other man. "This isn't right. She shouldn't be out in the open like that." It's daylight, for one thing. He trained the pack from hatching to a day schedule instead of their nocturnal preference, but like cats, they were still most active at dusk and dawn. Left on her own, Blue should naturally swing back to sleeping the day away and waking to hunt at twilight. "She might be scared to hunt on her own."

It doesn't sound like her, even being a pack animal without a pack. And if she's scavenging, that can be done at night.

This is odd.

Owen squints down at the tiny raptor. "Handlers got the petting zoo babies in safe, right?"

Barry snorts. "They're out of reach. Those people took their animals all the way to the vet center as soon as the dactyls cleared out." The veterinarian center has a compound of its own. Its staff was the last to leave during evacuation and the first demanding to return today. He has no doubt everyone would have heard by now if a patient even looked upset upon arrival.

Blue's head pops up, mouth clamped gently onto something. Both men bring their binoculars up. The raptor scans the street again, looking skittish, but she seems to have found what she was after. When she doesn't see anything, she lopes off down the road, still carrying what she dug out.

The men lower their binoculars at the same time, brows creasing. "This is strange."

"Yeah."

"I don't like it."

"Me either, buddy." Owen's face takes on a thoughtful expression, however. "I can't think of any reason she'd pick that up."

The blue-marked raptor passes out of their sight behind buildings at the crossroad. Despite the two of them watching, they don't see her go on into the jungle.

Five minutes later, and Blue trots back into sight on the street. She's no longer carrying the water bottle. After carefully surveying the open area, she heads back to the shop and begins pawing through the display again. The slightest sound or change of wind brings her head whipping up again, but she doesn't leave until she has another water bottle in her jaws.

Owen watches her lope back to the same area and nods as if he's decided something.

Barry grimaces. "Don't do it."

But the man's already turning to jog toward the landing pad door, rifle strap slung on his shoulder. "She's disoriented, but she knows me."

"She didn't eat you **once**. Besides," Barry switches tactics, "You're here to advise during clean-up. You know these ACU toughs won't let you take her on alone. They have shoot-to-kill orders for raptors."

"It doesn't have to be that way. I can bring her back. Once I get her back where she belongs, nobody's going to say anything about it." He can do this. She's alone and obviously confused.

Barry takes long strides to keep up with him, but he doesn't have to agree. "They're killers. Mankillers. She'll be put down."

"Hoskins was an idiot. We told him his plan was stupidity. Those raptors weren't tame, and I told him that. You told him that. We've got witnesses. We told him what would happen, and we've already know he set this up. Anything that happened," Owen stops suddenly and brings his hand up to point a finger at Barry, "was him trying to cheat nature, nothing else. Nobody blames a wild lion for killing her prey, and Hoskins knew raptors see us as dino-chow. He set that loose on his own men, and they paid the price for how far up he rammed his head up his ass."

Owen's raptor crew did the smart thing and locked themselves in the bunker during Hoskin's powertrip. They were fine. He might even talk them into returning to work. The InGen team was dead meat, but Claire getting out of the area in the truck actually led the raptors away before any park staff died. Through luck and timing, the men killed by his raptors were all military jerks brought in by an egotistical stuffed shirt the world is better off without.

The only funerals Owen will be sending flowers to are for victims of other dinosaurs, which is a relief in more than one way. He doesn't want secondhand guilt for his girls' actions on his shoulders, or for anyone to hold them responsible for the chaos. To be honest, he can't even blame the Indominus Rex for what happened. It wasn't her fault InGen designed her to be a weapon, or that they set her off.

"I can bring her back," Owen repeats. Rexy is a confirmed mankiller, a destructive animal that ate workers and guests from the old Jurassic Park. That hasn't stopped her from being one of the park's biggest draws, and last he heard, park Public Relations wanted to spin the security footage of that final fight into the damage control effort. They can't do that without including Blue's role. He is going to work the hell out of that angle with whoever's in charge. Whatever it takes to get a chance to coax his raptor into the paddock.

"If a T-Rex on the loose gets nonlethal restraint methods, then ACU can give me five minutes," he mutters.

Barry just shakes his head. "You're bringing backup."

"Probably a good idea."

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	7. Pt 7

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Humans have responsibility and guilt; raptors have loyalty. They are loyal to the pack because they are the pack. The idea of giving up, of having an _option_ , will never occur to them. Raptors fling themselves into attack without the human self-awareness to know it will kill them. Defense of the pack manifests so strongly they will die for their dead.

They do grieve, in a way. It is a fierce aspect of their loyalty. It is what spurs the pack to keep attacking even as they die. Loyal unto death, and beyond.

You can't say that's the behavior of a dumb animal. It's closer to human behavior.

Delta is too hot. Her eyes are glazed, her breath rank. The teeth punctures swell up hard, the skin tight under crusted scars. One pops, running a red-streaked pus that smells foul. She lashes out at random, gurgling in anger and pain, but the strikes are weak. Her leg seems to hurt her more and more, and her breathing is labored. Blue sniffs at her, nostrils flaring just above her skin.

She smells sick. Too hot. Blue doesn't know what to do. She licks the wounds, but cleaning the punctures doesn't help her sibling's leg or ribs.

Echo isn't as delirious, but she's just as fevered. She won't move unless Blue snarls at her. The burns oozing on her side smell worse than Delta. She lays on her side, good eye half-closed, and whines low, thready noises. Blue sniffs and licks at her, tongue ripping burns open until she backs away from the downed raptor, grumbling unease. It's not helping, but she doesn't know what else to do.

Morning of the third day is hard, but raptors will never understand the concept of half-hearted. Blue will bring the pack food and water until she herself drops. It's getting to that point. She's frenetic, driven too far on too little energy. The big Other stomped down the street last night, still bleeding but stronger than any one raptor. There was no option to back off, run away, abandon her pack to save herself. Blue stood hissing challenge at the threat in front of the nest, ready to attack, and then paced circles around her pack the rest of the night. She didn't sleep at all. She couldn't leave them unguarded.

At dawn, she dared venture toward the far end of the street, watching for the huge water-Other warily as she sniffed out more carrion. She hasn't found any more dead prey since yesterday.

Finding water, at least, is easy. Blue figured it out while clawing through of the strange food areas. The fire that burnt Echo keeps her well away from the one area, but there are scraps of oily, odd meat scattered throughout the buildings. Usually in bins on the street, but also spoiling in back rooms of the buildings that the prey grazed in. She digs them out to bring to her pack. In the bins, there are also many of the smooth hard crackly things. Her teeth collapse them when they're empty, which most of them are, and they crackle as she pushes them aside with her snout.

Sometimes, there is a little water inside them. She's startled, the first time she crunches a bottle and water leaks onto her tongue.

She remembers. The second time, she stops to think about the water. The pack needs water. She can't carry water to them like she carries rats and meatscraps. Can she?

Prey can carry water. She has seen the prey on the wall drink hard water. Alpha carries hard water. She has seen _Alpha_ drink hard water. Hard water that looks like the crackly smooth thing she breaks with her teeth. The hard crackly things in the bins are mostly empty, but there are heavy hard smooth things that look like she remembers in many of the buildings. They don't crackle; they _thud_. Investigating them with her nose rolls them around, thudding them off counters onto the floor. Very, very faintly under the prey and plastic, they smell of water.

Show a raptor a trick, and she will learn it. Show a raptor prey drinking from hard water, and that raptor will eventually puzzle out that she, too, can drink from it.

It took her trial and error to learn how to carry the bottles. They're slippery. She coughed water up, snorting fine sprays out her nose after she bit one too hard and it emptied down her throat. Once she brought them to the nest, she wasn't sure what to do with them. Delta and Echo snorted, staring at the things she dumped in front of them. One frustrated snap at the hard, smooth water burst clear water onto the ground, however, and suspicious head-tilts became a scramble to drink.

Blue avoids the hard water that smells sweet. Biting those explodes fizzy not-water into her mouth, and it's _disgusting._

So she is finding hard water for the pack, tired as she is, when she hears metal. Prey-metal. Prey-with-fangs sounds. The raptors are used to everyday prey sounds, the sounds of the wall and feeding and behind the bars. Three days has made a world of difference in how Blue reacts to otherwise normal sounds. Having hunted prey and felt their fangs, her usual fearlessness flees. Threat-to-pack, danger, _danger,_ is between her and the pack, and panicked rage blots out exhaustion. She drops the hard water and darts back out onto the street, ready to attack, ready to defend, unable to do any less than throw herself between her pack and the threat.

In the middle of the crossroad is Alpha.

Blue slows. Her foreclaws, up and ready for the leap, slowly drop down. Five meters away, close enough to attack, she stops.

Alpha stares at her over his fang. She stares back, head up. He blinks. She cocks her head and squawks, growling in her chest as she tests the air. He smells different. He smells the same. He is prey. He is Alpha.

The pack needs water. The pack needs _food_.

She doesn't know what to do.

Blue wavers. Learned behavior and loyalty pull in her mind, lines overlapped. She remembers warm hands and food, always feeding the pack until they're not hungry. Rewarding them with tasty extras tossed down from the wall. Playing the training-games, and _'Good, that's good, that's great.'_ Spraying them with cool water on hot days. Pulling tug-o-war with rope through the bars. Hands petting under her chin and right behind her jawbone while she stands in the ready-cage, head held motionless in metal.

The walls smelled of him. Their den smelled of him. The den, with its safety from Others. The ready food and water, always given, always provided by his hands. She remembers the den and the pack inside it, and he is one of them.

And she remembers: the pack playing too rough, ragged claw slices dribbling blood on their hides. She remembers the long sleepy dark where no pain awaited. Soothing rumbles from Alpha purring at her, Alpha there when the darkness faded, and the pain is numbed and gone. Blue stares at Alpha, thinks of Delta and Echo, their too-hot skin and glazed eyes, and _thinks_.

He is everywhere in her memories, a pervasive warm, safe presence. Only when he's gone did the cold uncertainty seep into her days.

Her jaw drops. She gives a stressed, sharp purrl. She remembers.

The fang lowers. Alpha chitters his calm-cry, _'Easy. Easy, Blue.'_

It's a voice she knows from the egg, the voice of pack and Alpha. Exhausted and anxious as she is, it strikes her hindbrain hard.

Prey cries out somewhere nearby, prey-with-fangs, and Alpha's fang jerks up, but too late. She's already lunging forward as if she's years younger and a meter shorter. The peeping cry of a hatchling accompanies a headbutt to Alpha's chest that staggers him back. It's the sound of a hatchling to her parent, distressed and seeking comfort. The top of her head bulls into Alpha's soft skin, rubbing hard, but it's not close enough. Old behavior urges her to seek the safety of close contact, and she burrows in, face sliding along his chest until she can push under his arm, grunting softly. Her nose pokes out into the air, but her head stays firmly hidden in his armpit.

Hidden, protected, Blue croons a broken hatchling plea for comfort.

Alpha's shouting, but not at her. His fang is gone, dropped to the ground, and his hands are as warm as she remembers. His elbow clamps in to hold her against his side how he used to, once upon a nursery. She shudders and nudges closer, trying to fit her whole body in to hide. It doesn't work, but she tries, making little peeping noises as she burrows stubbornly in.

The regression is surprising in an animal, but not for an animal with a complex brain her size. It's almost human. Alpha doesn't push her away or question it. He just clamps his arm around the blue-marked raptor's head and rubs her neck and behind her jaw, giving her the comfort she needs.

 _'Easy, easy.'_

 _'That's it.'_

 _'Easy, Blue.'_

He is pack. There's no other option.

* * *

 **[* * * * *]**


	8. Pt 8

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

It doesn't last. The lightning bolt reaction passes as fast as it came, and she shakes loose. The hands on her neck let go immediately, the second she tugs her head free, and Alpha takes a step back, eyes on her. She straightens, head coming up. He looks at her. She cocks her head to the side. He does, too.

Purrling at him makes the side of his mouth tug up in his version of a chirp.

But he's not the only one here. She hears prey, prey-with-fangs. Alerted by the rough metal scent and telltale prey herd noise, she turns her head to locate them. Threat-to-pack?

It's a small herd, but they have many fangs. They're at the other end of the street, away from the nest. Too close. She hisses, shouldering Alpha aside to crouch, foreclaws up and hindclaws tapping. Fresh meat for her siblings. Threat-to-pack prey-with-fangs are still _prey_. They're just _dangerous_ prey.

The fangs are pointed at her. She saw what the fangs could do. Charlie exploded in flame and burning.

Blue snarls, threat-cry ripping the air. Her claws will rip flesh the same way, and she tenses for the sprint. She doesn't know how to be alone, or how to hunt by herself. It's too open here, but prey-with-fangs are dangerous, threat-to-pack. Fleeing doesn't even occur to her as an option.

 _'Easy, easy,'_ Alpha calm-cries to her, hand outstretched like a nose, like one of the pack making an overture to groom. Reassurance, stability, safety. His other hand is out in a tense flat, the gesture she knows as _'Back off'_ From a sibling, it's bared teeth and growling, but Alpha's peculiar sounds are as clear as another raptor. She's grown up with them, after all.

The _'Back off'_ isn't directed at her. Alpha is baring teeth at the prey-with-fangs, defending _pack_ , and it's completely right. _Yes_. Blue trumpets, calling him to hunt with her, jaw dropping open to roll her tongue in a purrling chirr. Hunt with her. Yes. Alpha can hunt with her, and they can be pack. She's not alone. They are pack, and they'll defend the pack together.

But Alpha calm-cries, his hand drawing closer. She shifts uneasily, taking a step away, head tipping down to eye it. Head tilt up, cocked to the side, and she blinks at him. She's not used to this. Alpha will touch her in the ready-cage, warm hands and close contact, _'That a girl. You don't scare me.'_ He hasn't touch-nuzzled outside the ready-cage since the hatch-nest, the nursery. He took the metal thing off her head, however. He hunted beside the pack, hunted the not-Alpha.

Maybe this is an outside-walls thing, like drinking hard water. They didn't always play hide-and-seek, either. Hide-and-seek was a new game, once. Hide-and-seek outside the walls was brand new, too. Maybe this is part of the new.

She clicks her teeth at him, uneasy, but he calm-cries again and again, hand waiting. She steps away, then back, chin up, chin down. Glancing at the prey herd doesn't help her decide. They're staying at the end of the street. It's just her and Alpha right now.

Finally, hesitantly, she purrls.

His hand touches her, foreclaws soft. They slide slowly up the side of her face, and Blue lets them. It's familiar. It's safe.

Without realizing it, she's straightened from an attack-ready crouch as her attention focuses on _pack_. The prey shift and murmur, but Alpha happy-barks, ' _That's good, that's damn good.'_ When her head turns toward the prey, he chitter-clicks, other hand raised toward her, now. _'Eyes on me,'_ the chitter-click in his hand says, clicks like the rattling call of her siblings announcing where they are around her. It's authoritative, however, the leader of the hunt calling the pack to stay together, to follow.

Her eyes snap to him. His hand moves, and the chitter-click and happy-bark tell her it's what Alpha wants. He wants her looking at him, not at the prey. Okay. Her eyes stay on him. She's hungry, but she's used to being around prey she can't eat. She knows this routine. It's right out of the training-games: attention on him, not on siblings or prey.

It doesn't feel safe, not now that she's seen prey-with-fangs snap at the pack. This is new, and she almost bites at Alpha, unease and hunger strong in her belly. Prey is food for the pack, he is prey, but he is Alpha. He is pack. They are pack. The chitter-click is familiar. His hand on her neck is now-new, but old-familiar. She doesn't know what to do, but he does. Alpha is provider and guide, now as he's always been. He tells her what to do in this newness through old cues, and it's strange but comforting.

After three days guarding her siblings because she doesn't know what else to do, Blue's mind suddenly fastens on that. Alpha knows what to do.

She turns her head, quick as a snake, eyes level with Alpha's and nose in his face. A snorting breath makes him blink. He flinches but doesn't take his hand off her. The prey shout. He shouts back at them without taking his eyes off her.

She squawks in his face. _'Here.'_

He doesn't move.

She squawks again, more urgently. _'Here. Here. Here.'_ She breaks away from him, turning a fast circle and coming to a stop in front of him to squawk again. _'Here. Here. Here.'_ Another circle, turning toward the nest and back toward him to trumpet this time. Come _on!_

Alpha is barking, _'Back off'_ hand up, but not at her. The prey are restless, but he's warding them off. She whines, turning a circle and darting in to knock her head against her shoulder like he's Echo during a training-game. She takes a nip at him, catching the soft skin he wears, and pulls, urging him toward the nest.

The prey-with-fangs clatter their fangs, barking alarm. Alpha sucks in a breath, hand gone tense as if he's going to bark at her this time, but she lets go and circles, squawking, _'Here. Here. Here.'_

Alpha looks at her. His hand slowly rises into the right position, and she dips down, bowing low with her head arched up toward him as she wriggles, tail high. Yes!

' _Aaaand - we're moving!'_ Alpha says in the back of her mind, memory on memory of training-games, his hand held high.

This time, she leads him.

* * *

 **[* * * * *]**


	9. Pt 9

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"It's okay! Stay back!"

"You're crazy!" Barry shouts down the street at him, waving the hand not holding a gun. "You're going to get **eaten**!"

Says the man who didn't shoot the raptor trying to dig through a log to kill him. The raptors can be scary mofos, but Barry doesn't want to shoot Blue any more than Owen does. The corner of Owen's mouth turns up, but he doesn't drop his hand to give his friend the appropriate response. Blue probably wouldn't understand what a single extended finger means.

She knows what his raised hand means. Smart as she is, she prompted him into doing what she wanted. She's using the training on him, as if she trained him to respond as much as he was training the pack to his cues. He knows some of the pack's social sounds, but interpreting Blue's purrling sound as acknowledgment and submission isn't the same as actual two-way communication. This is new. She's taken her training and used it to tell him she wants him to follow her, and that's as alarming as it is intriguing. How smart _is_ she?

The answer seems to be: one smart cookie. The blue-marked raptor loping down the street is positively antsy as she stops to look back, killing claw tapping an impatient tattoo. Clearly, she's expecting him to follow his own training. Considering the way she pulled on his shirt, it seems pretty urgent he follow her.

"I'm going to follow her," Owen says over his shoulder. He stoops to pick up his rifle with the hand holding the clicker. Blue loops back around, head bobbing as her eyes flick from him to the ACU people, but he keeps his other hand raised. "Easy, Blue. We're moving. Let's go."

She perks up, purrling her submission-acknowledgment sound. Her toes tap again, and she stutters the funny growl the raptors exchange when running as a group. He guesses that means he should get his butt in gear and follow as she darts away.

Owen's earned his five minutes and then some. The head honcho of the recovery team didn't want to let him go down the main road alone, not with a confirmed mankiller velociraptor on the loose, but if he can pull this off, the security footage from this is going to save her tail. Owen can use her well-socialized, well- _trained_ behavior with him right here and now to argue Hoskins was solely responsible for the deathtoll. The idiot tried to make her something she isn't. What she is, is a captive-raised animal outside her paddock, and she's acting like it. Asset Containment is hair-trigger at his back watching Blue jitter, but she's interacting with her handler without hostility, and that's bought her reprieve from the shoot-to-kill orders.

"Crazy," Barry says through the radio clipped to his collar, but he stays with the containment crew at a distance. Whatever breed of lunatic Owen Grady is to trust the raptors, it's worked so far.

"She wants to show me something. It might just be her nest, but I want to see if I can get her back into the paddock without sedating her." He doesn't want to give her reason to distrust him. Right now, he's all the pack she has, and he wants to keep that bond tight.

He doubts she'll last on her own. If ACU doesn't kill her, being alone will. Raptors are intensely pack animals, their entire lives structured around social bonds that are suddenly no longer _there_ for her. However much of a killer she is, she's also a captive animal set loose in a wild environment she hasn't been raised to cope with. In that light, her response to him is simply the clinging of a confused pack animal to her parent, and he wants to encourage that trust. Bonding closer together will make her more dependent on him.

He won't trust that the bond is strong enough to be stress-tested, but he'll use whatever he can get to keep her following him. If he can get her back in the paddock, it'll be familiar territory. She'll be safe inside. Nobody will come hunting her, and she won't be able to hunt anyone.

Hopefully, clinging to him as her pack will keep her balanced. He can keep her healthy. On her own, Blue's not doing too good. She's lost weight. It's only been three days, but raptors are high calorie-burning predators. He's a little surprised by how much weight she's dropped, but it makes sense. The chaos of three days ago involved a lot of running and killing, far more activity than a captivity-raised animal was used to. By herself, she's likely scavenging for whatever scraps she can find.

He hopes she went back and ate Hoskins. Serve the bastard right.

Claire was breathing fire, brimstone, and lawsuits down InGen's neck last Owen talked to her. Masrani's COO was backing her to the hilt, standing with her against screaming investors and rabid media alike. Owen doesn't _like_ smarmy business suits, but he likes Wiesner if only for the language Claire told him the man used when the camera turns off. That language has been getting a decent workout the last three days as damage control kicked into high gear.

Key resources and assets connected to Hoskin's Security Initiative up and disappeared overnight three days ago, and the Masrani Global Corporation is out for blood to get them back. Also to get a hold of whomever in InGen is ultimately responsible for the entire park incident. Hoskin's people pulled out with Dr. Wu, probably planning to vanish without a trace, but they made the mistake of using Lowery for part of their operation. What he didn't copy, overhear, or poke into while letting them into the Jurassic World computer system, Vivian did. Between the two of them, the lawyers are going to have a glut of evidence to bury InGen in.

Owen kind of thinks the pack of lawyers has more in common with velociraptors than any human should. The incident isn't as much of a disaster as it first appeared, not now that they have proof of InGen's meddling. Public Relations' wheels were just catching traction when Owen left with the recovery team for Isla Nublar. Claire sent out tentative schedule to employees this morning, getting them ready for the park reopening.

So Owen intends to keep his raptor safe and cared for until the park's up and running again. The lab will science up a few more eggs once the lawyers hunt down the military vultures who took the embryos. He'll keep Blue socialized and introduce her to the next generation. It's the not the first time he's brought young raptors into the pack, one at a time. Blue will adopt new siblings well enough if he's real careful about it, and he's got a few ideas about how velociraptors can be part of the park itself instead of keeping them out of the public eye as a research project.

For now, he jogs after Blue, keeping his motions steady and smooth. He knows how fragile his position is. Tomorrow will wait until he deals with today.

"We've got your six," Barry says through the radio. "Still no sign of the 'rex."

Owen gives a thumb up over his head before resuming the movement-signal for Blue. She's turned up ahead and is dancing in place, head bobbing up and down as she looks at him and then past him at the containment team stopped at the crossroad. They're making her nervous.

Raptors are pretty damn smart. It's obvious she knows what those guns can do. He's lucky she doesn't automatically associate that wariness with him, and really lucky she's not attacking anyone.

She gives a distressed screeing chitter, and he slows down as he approaches. "Easy. Easy. What's here, Blue?"

He deliberately eases closer, and her head cocks, teeth champing. It's not an aggressive gesture, or the bared teeth he half expects. It's inquisitive, if anything. Her foreclaws are curled under instead of spread. She's not afraid of him or ready to attack. She's just not sure what he's doing.

Owen doesn't trust the docile acceptance to last, but God, the sense of satisfaction he's getting right now will fuel the training of a hundred raptors. _It really works._ Ha! "Easy," he repeats, daring to lower his hand toward her.

Her head jerks up, eyes fixed on it, and he pauses. He doesn't want to lose a hand. He's not Hoskins to think a raised hand translates as anything beside a crunchy target to a predator. She eyes his hand as if wondering what it's there for, but she knows him. When she shifts her feet and grumbles, eyes returning to him, he slides another step forward until he can touch her.

She's dry and warm. Resting his hand on her neck sends a thrill through him. Part adrenaline for the danger, admittedly.

Owen smiles without showing his teeth, just for her.

Blue twists her head, her body following in a boneless predator sinuousness. Pebbled skin slips out of his hand, but she slaps his side with her tail like she would one of her siblings as she moves quickly through a hole in the wall of a building. Her creel is almost frantic.

A soft cheep answers her.

Owen's eyes widen. "Hold up, what?" Slinging the rifle onto his shoulder, he turns and waves both hands at the team before bringing one down to press the talk button on his radio. "I'm going in."

"Don't go into the building!"

Barry's protest is too late; Owen is already climbing up into the hole. "I've got to. I think one of the other raptors is alive in here. That's what she wants to show me - holy **shit**."

It's dark, coming in out of the bright tropical sunlight. He squints, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Everything's dark shapes at the moment, but in the middle of the shop is a big moving shape. Blue. She creels at him, head bent so low over limp raptor stretched out on the floor that her chin almost brushes skin. Her eyes catch the light, dark but glistening. They're fixed on him in what he can only call hope.

No, that's a human emotion, too wishful a concept for an animal. It's trust. He's the alpha. She trusts him to help.

The downed raptor she stands over is still, too still. His heart aches. "Aw, Blue…"

A croaking rasp startles him so bad he jumps. He turns wide eyes to the side, and there's another raptor. Normally, that's something to inspire sudden panic, especially with this raptor. She's always been the challenger in the pack, aiming for the beta space in the pack right up until the day Blue beat her tail down for good. Even after that, her aggression levels were fairly high.

He considered the scars on her face from that challenge fight to be a warning of her aggression, but he can't even see those scars anymore. Owen hisses an indrawn breath and immediately takes a step forward. Panic isn't what he feels, seeing her. "Oh no. Echo?"

There's not much left of her to be afraid of. Echo tilts her head to the side, good eye on him. Weeping, infected burns crack and leak as she tries to rise. She collapses midway through the attempt, rattling a moan. Her pain-filled eye stares up at him, glazing over. The nictitating membrane slides slowly over it, a protective reflex that's not helping her one bit. The damage is done.

Ah, shit, he should have known. He'd been too busy scrambling out of the Indominus' way to think about how _short_ the violent flare-up was when Echo hit the grill, but common sense kicks him as he looks at the burns, now. It was an open-fire grill exposed to a tourist thoroughfare. Park Health & Safety doesn't just hand out pamphlets on what to do in case a guest collapses from heat stroke. They're responsible for accident-proofing everything, and the grill probably had nineteen safeties slapped on it. At the very least, the propane had a safety cut-off.

It's too late to change anything, but Owen wishes he'd thought about this two days ago.

"Easy, Echo, easy," he says, crouching down slowly. Animals in pain lash out. He won't get any closer unless she recognizes him, and even then, he doesn't think it's smart. He doesn't want to discover what a fever-delirious, pain-crazed velociraptor is capable of.

She stares at him. He talks softly to her, trying to judge how much coherent she is. She whines pitifully in response to his voice, eye blinking clear enough to focus on his face, and the tension bleeds out of her. Her head sinks back to the floor, neck twisting so she can keep her eye locked on him. Good, she recognizes him. It'll be easier on her if she stays calm. The burns haven't killed her outright, but shock and infection are no laughing matter, and he doesn't want to aggravate her condition.

Blue creels, drawing his attention back to her. He turns his head without standing, eyes flicking back and forth between her and Echo. "It's okay. We're okay. I see her. I'm gonna help her, Blue."

But she's nudging the raptor she's standing over.

Owen stands up so fast he has to take a step to recover his balance. Surprise sends his eyebrows into his hairline. "Delta!"

He thought Blue was guarding a dead body, but his eyes have adjusted to the dim light by now. He sees her tail thump on the floor first, and a cold leaden weight in his chest lightens. The downed raptor attempts to raise her head to push Blue's snout away. She moans a low, rough cry full of pain, and Owen can see why. Her leg is the most obvious problem, broken and swollen midway between knee and ankle, but he can hear her labored breathing over Blue's loud creeling. When Blue stops nudging her in order to fix Owen with that hopeful, trusting gaze again, Delta's head flops back to the floor. Too weak or tired, she's unable to keep it up.

Taking a few steps closer and kneeling down, he thinks he sees the problem. Those ribs have to be broken. Moving her torso just to breathe has to be torture, and that's only the wounds he can see from here. He remembers the sick crunch as the Indominus closed her jaws on Delta. Broken ribs are likely the tip of the iceberg for internal injuries.

"Aw. Aw, girl. Easy, easy," he soothes her when she tries to lift her head again. He puts his hand out but doesn't dare touch her.

Echo cheeps. Owen looks at her, and she cheeps right at him, the high-pitched peep she used to make when she wanted to be picked up. She picks her head up off the floor enough to drop her jaw and baby-bird gape at him, begging. A couple seconds later Delta picks up the noise, cheeping and peeping like a baby. She tosses her head back, looking back at him as best she can how she's lying, and she cheeps, chewing on nothing. It's like walking into the nursery again, baby raptors begging at his knees for their parent and alpha to give them food, attention, to make everything better.

Blue keeps giving him that look.

"Owen! You crazy man, are you dead yet?"

All the raptors raise their heads, eyes alert. Delta drops hers, too pained to keep it up, and goes back to cheeping. Echo hesitates but adds to the chorus after a moment. Blue flexes her claws, rocking from foot to foot.

Owen toggles the radio. "Still alive. Listen, I'm going to need some sedatives. Three. The food tablet kind if you can get them. Someone run to the paddock, get the moving truck, the sedatives, and something to put them in."

"What's happening in there?"

He looks around what had once been a shop. There's a mound of souvenir t-shirts and tree branches around Delta, swept together in a crude nest. The smell of rotted meat is nauseatingly heavy, but aside from massive wet-tacky puddles of blood smeared everywhere, buzzing with flies, there isn't any meat in sight. He's grateful for that since he's fairly sure what they've been eating. For some reason, there are dozens of plastic water bottles scattered all around the nest, ripped apart.

He picks one up to look at as he talks. "Not sure, but from what I'm seeing, I think Blue's been keeping the other two alive. Echo's burned to shit. Delta's got a broken leg and looks like some broken ribs." He turns the water bottle over in his hands. Why water bottles?

There's a long silence. This is far more complicated than one lone velociraptor wandering loose in the park. ACU's going to pitch a fit.

"...I'll make the calls," Barry says at last.

Owen looks at the two wounded raptors peeping at him in increasing desperation. They're acting like chicks, but Blue did the same when she spotted him on the road. It's not so much a regression in mindset so much as a strong association between baby behavior and, what, protection? Care? Depending on how intelligent raptors are and the social bond inside the pack, that makes more sense than it doesn't. Wounded animals are more often left to die. Delta and Echo are thin, but not starvation-thin. The cheeping could be pack behavior, a response to their helplessness. Since they can't hunt, they're appealing to the pack for food and water.

Blue's been taking care of them like a mother with chicks. She's obviously been sticking around, bringing them whatever meat she's scavenged.

And water. "Clever girl," Owen says quietly. He holds the water bottle up, suddenly getting it. Helpless siblings at the nest, finding and bringing in full water bottles from other stores, bite marks in the plastic..."Clever, clever girl."

Blue's head jerks back. She blinks rapidly. She knows that tone of voice, and damn right he's going to pull it out for her. He's proud of her.

" **Good** girl," he says firmly. "That's a good girl."

The purrling cry is loud enough to shock him, but not as much as her lunge over Delta. Blue's on him before he can reach for the rifle.

"Gyaah!"

"Owen! Owen, what's happening?!"

"I'm - " Blue chitter-peeps right in the radio, interrupting him. Owen pushes her head away for half a second, and she goes right back to rubbing her jaw all over him, nuzzling and pushing in an orgy of scent-marking. He grunts, pushing up on elbow. His back's wet from the blood on the floor. He'll smell like a slaughter house until he can get changed. Slaughter house, and raptor. She seems determined to mark every last inch of him. "I'm fine. Blue's happy to see me. Get those sedatives and put in a call to whoever's staffing the vet center."

"Do we need to keep watch for them coming out?"

"Nah, don't think so. They're in bad shape." Delta, at least, can't move. Echo's watching Blue 'assault' him without joining in, which tells him how injured she is. This is usually a full pack social ritual.

Blue's almost three raptors on her own. More rubbing, pushing into his shoulders and over his face and neck, the raptor equivalent of _'Mine mine mine!'_ She snorts into the radio, butting his hand, and he pushes down on her nose to get some room. Nostrils flare against the palm of his hand, and she purrls, nudging as she tries to push it aside to get at him.

Scooting back, he fends Blue off enough to get back to his feet so he's not in range of an accidental stomping from clawed feet. As soon as he's standing, she headbutts him in the stomach, chitter-peeping. He inhales sharply, expecting a bite, but she turns her head to rub the whole side of her face against him. Letting the breath out in a long sigh, he cautiously lays his hand on the back of her neck. He knows this behavior. He's seen the pack do it enough. Hell, he used to be part of it in the nursery.

His fingers dig in, scratching hard, and she croons, twisting her head around to rub her bony jaw up his other side. He returns the rubbing with his hands under her jaw, scratching down her neck, loosely hugging her neck to reach the itchy sweet spots he remembers, and she wriggles in his arms, twisting like a snake to cover him in the smell of _pack_.

The vaguely disturbing scent of velociraptor plus the rotted blood soaked into the back of his shirt will fill the recovery team with confidence, he can tell. Nothing like seeing a man dripping blood and smelling of predator. Mm-mm. Behold the glorious life - and reek - of an animal handler. Barry will probably just tell him he's got something on his face. The raptor paddock crew's seen Owen covered in worse.

He chuckles and scratches up underneath Blue's chin, up in the soft spot behind the bone, and she goes still, just her tail moving. It lashes slowly from side to side, and her lower eyelids curve up to half-lid her eyes. Her jaw drops, but he knows that unique little churr sound. "Good girl," he says softly. "Good girl."

Eventually, she blinks, shaking her head free. She draws her head back to look into his face. He keeps his hand half-extended, and she purrls. The social ritual completed, Blue steps over to Echo, bending down to rub faces and carefully down her back while Echo rasps and tries to return the jaw-rubbing, claiming and being claimed.

He knows she'll move on to Delta next. They're pack. That's what pack does.

The radio clicks on. "They going to make it? Three days is a long time for broken bones and burns."

She won't leave the pack, and neither will he. "They'll make it," Owen says into the radio.

* * *

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	10. Pt 10

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* * *

 **A/N:** A couple people were confused by the background/characterization of Echo in the last chapter. It's based off of the raptors' official profiles from LEGO, and the Masrani Corp. info is from the movie promotion websites.

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* * *

After chattering into his metal neck-thing for a while, Alpha looks around the nest. He picks up a hard water that's rolled away and crouches down just out of nuzzling distance from Delta's head. He's better at giving water to her than Blue is. Her foreclaws can't hold the smooth hard water like he does, tilting it gradually to make a steady stream for Delta to snap at. Delta gulps mouthfuls of water from the air as he pours it in front of her snout.

Blue watches him, cocking her head from side to side rapidly, but she can't figure out the trick. She searches out another rolled-away hard water and brings it to Echo in her jaws. The burnt raptor blinks wearily at her. Blue crunches the hard water over Echo's head, but it produces only a brief shower of water. Echo is baffled but gamely twists her head to lap water off the floor.

It frustrates Blue, but Alpha stands to walk near enough to touch-nuzzle her neck, happy-barking at her. _'That a girl.'_ He chatters at all of them, a soothing flow of Alpha-sounds. It's been the background noise of their entire lives. They're an extremely vocal species raised by an even more vocal species. Body language is an incredibly large portion of their social cues, but vocal sound has been highly encouraged since they first heard muffled words outside their eggs. Imprinting on Alpha didn't change their instinctive repertoire of sounds, but raptors are smart. They learned his vocalizations, even attempted to imitate the weird honks and barks as chicks.

Blue leans into his hand but snuffles at her siblings, who snort and growl back. Alpha joins in the general pack-chatter, and the muscles down Blue's back, wound tight from days of nonstop tension, slowly relax. It's a piece of normal that's been absent, something that comforts her just by hearing it again. He chitters at them, and they chatter back, and together they are a noisy, talkative pack.

Humans change their tones and inflections, adding cues that make the same word mean different things. The pack can recognize some particular chitters Alpha makes no matter what pitch he says them in, but they also recognize when he's talking to them. They can recognize communication. For instance, Blue can, sometimes, understand in a straining kind of way that the _'Blue'_ sound while Alpha chitters at prey means he's talking _about_ her, _to_ the prey. It's a logical leap that's hard for her to make. Big as her brain is, she's still an animal. It's difficult for a raptor, however smart, to make that sort of extended connection, and she will never associate talking into a radio with anything.

Alpha is _pack_. Whatever she doesn't understand about what he does, she understands that. Blue will accept chattering into a metal-thing from Alpha.

Metal roars outside, distant but coming closer. Blue stomps nervously, tail lashing. Her head goes up, turning to track the smell and noise of metal approaching. The blue-marked raptor doesn't hiss at the metal thing as it rumbles to a stop outside, but only because she recognizes it. She grew up around metal things. They don't scare her, and she's used to this one in particular. It smells strongly of her and her siblings. She doesn't remember being on it, but the pack's woken up smelling of it before, usually after one of the blurry dark times.

The metal creature honks outside the nest, on the other side of the wall. Delta and Echo screech, alarmed, but Blue just cocks her head and growls, shifting her feet and clicking her foreclaws to warn she'll attack if it gets any closer. Is it curious? Threat-to-pack? She can smell prey. Prey-with-fangs?

Alpha calm-cries at her as he moves across the nest. He pushes a door open, and she twitches, ducking her head. Delta cheeps, anxious, and she creels reassurance. Echo howls a wary threat growl. Blue stalks forward to stand between them and the door, lips wrinkling to bare her teeth at the metal thing right outside. It blocks most of the door, leaving the nest open but not exposed. The raptors still don't like it. Blue spreads her foreclaws, hissing softly as she coils into a taut crouch with her chest close to the ground, ready to spring.

 _'Easy, easy,'_ Alpha calm-cries to her, hand up. With his hand up like a sibling's snout and his eyes level on her, he faces her down. She opens her mouth and hisses in a long, slow breath in preparation for a snarling hunt cry, but his hand flattens into a stern, _'Back off.'_

She doesn't want to. The metal creature has its back to the nest, but it's too close. The pack is helpless.

 _'Back off,'_ Alpha's hand says, and he barks at her. It's a different chitter but the same tone. It's the tone of snapping teeth warding her away.

Her head bobs, eyes flicking from him to the metal creature. It hasn't moved, and its dull roar stopped. Maybe it's not threat-to-pack.

 _'Back off.'_

She straightens, pulling her head up to huff, annoyed. She's used to metal creatures being near, although not this near. Echo and Delta are both staring at it warily, shifting where they lay, but they're suspicious, not afraid. As long as it doesn't try to come into the nest, she'll allow it to sleep there.

Blue doesn't like it, but she doesn't want to challenge Alpha, and his eyes are narrow on her. She looks to one side.

Without looking away or lowering his hand, he backs through the door. Her eyes snap back to him. She rattle-calls a protest as he climbs up onto the metal thing's flat back, but he calm-cries back at her, _'Easy, easy.'_

He tosses something out onto the ground, a bundle of sticks and soft skin, but it's forgotten when he jumps down carrying a food bucket.

Wariness disappears. The pack regards the bucket with interest. They know what that means.

Blue warbles approval, suddenly much less nervous about the metal thing in the door. Alpha uses metal things. Obviously, he used this one to bring prey to the pack. _Good_ Alpha. Blue trots over to investigate, ignoring the hand going up, and sniffs at the bucket. Fresh meat!

She lunges down, mouth open, but he gives the familiar, "Ho!"

She jerks back, cocking her head to look up at him. It's his _'Stop; pay attention'_ warn-howl, the one he uses in training-games, but in the _'Back off'_ voice. Familiar chitter, wrong tone. She whines, confused, tipping her head the other way. The meat tempts her to take another snap at it.

But Alpha slowly pivots, taking the bucket out from under her snout. His hand goes up in the _'Back off'_ signal in front of her nose. Her eyes flick to the bucket, to his hand, to the bucket. It's fresh meat. She's hungry. The urge to bite prey rises, fighting _pack_. This is Alpha, but Alpha is prey, but Alpha is _pack_.

"Delta. Echo," Alpha calls as though this is a training-game and he going to toss them extra treats, and Blue blinks at him. She's not her siblings. He's not looking at the other two. He's looking at her, not them, but giving _her_ the _'Back off'_ signal.

It's a leap of logic, one a raptor can barely make, but it suddenly connects as she stares at him. She understands. He's not talking _to_ them. He's talking _about_ them.

Food for the pack. Alpha brought food for her siblings. The mixed signals mean _'Not for you.'_

She straightens, foreclaws uncurling in abrupt release. She backs off, chuffing air hard as she whirls around, checking the entrance of the nest before turning to face Alpha with her head up, waiting.

Watching her, never turning his back, he walks along the wall toward Delta. Delta smells the meat, too, and she cheeps frantically, her good leg paddling air as if she can run to the meat-smell. Blue creels back at her, then chirps. Alpha brought food.

He crouches down out of Delta's reach and hums his feeding-chirr. _'Hold on, hold on.'_

Delta paddles faster, excited by hatchling memory and food. She trills loudly and bites at the metal claw he takes out of the bucket. That's the feeding claw! It means _food_. She wants food _now._

Alpha snorts amusement and grabs a claw full of bloody meat from the bucket.

Blue ducks her head low, purrling submission as she ventures near to sniff delicately at the metal claw. Alpha's offering Delta meat with it, but he narrows his eyes as he watches Blue inch closer. She's allowed to approach, but the feeding-chirr barks stern when she gets too close. She flattens herself close to the ground, head and tail low, and purrls earnestly. Not threat-to-pack. Not challenging Alpha. She won't steal meat from her siblings like a greedy hatchling. They aren't fighting over a prey carcass inside the walls. She's the largest and strongest in the pack, owed the largest share of the kill, but right now, that means she provides for the pack first.

Like Alpha is. Like Alpha always has. Alpha has always fed the raptors. He's always fed her last, too, glaring her down until she accepts he controls the food from his hand. He's not behind the bars this time, safe from slashing claws and dominance fights, but she accepts his control of the food bucket. _'Not for you,'_ he tells her by repeating, " **Delta**."

Blue lays her chin on the floor and looks up at him, purrling agreement-submission.

He watches her a moment more before digging the metal claw back into the bucket. Delta gobbles more bloody flesh. As soon as she's gulped down a few claws full, Alpha stands up and carries the food bucket to Echo, whose desolate cheeping hasn't stopped since she smelled meat. Blue's eyes follow him, but she doesn't stand up. She snakes around to keep watching, blinking owlishly as she looks up at Alpha from the floor. He taps the bucket, looking back at her thoughtfully.

When he crouches this time, it's with his side to her. She can see him looking at her sidelong, waiting for her to move. She snuffles, sneezes, shakes her head, but stays where she is.

The feeding-chirr starts again.

Only after Echo's eaten her share does Alpha set the bucket down. Echo whines, nosing after it, but he stands and pushes it with his foot toward Blue. "Blue."

She blinks at him. Hesitantly, she straightens up and takes a step forward. He doesn't warn her away. She takes another step.

Ducking her head down, she plunges her snout into the bucket. The meat is fresh and still warm, blood tasty on her tongue. She straightens and blinks at Alpha, blood dribbling from the meat hanging out the sides of her mouth, then turns to walk to Delta. The blue-marked raptor bobs, chirring as she lowers her head. Delta trills in response, opening her mouth.

"Blue!" Alpha points at her. _'This one's for you.'_

Blue tips her head, puzzled. She starts to lift her head to toss the food back and swallow, but Delta chirrs. She lowers her head to offer her sibling the meat without a thought. Echo trills, wanting more. Blue turns back to the bucket to get another mouthful.

Alpha sighs and goes back to the metal thing in the door to chitter at the prey Blue can smell outside. It's one prey, a familiar one. She wants to hunt it, but there is meat in the food bucket. Alpha will bring them more food. He's pack. He communicates with prey and uses metal things, but he feeds the rest of the pack.

She patiently feeds her crippled siblings the meat he brought them.

They fall asleep soon after.

Alpha comes back into the nest and stares at her. He doesn't chatter at her, but there's a clear overtone of _'Don't give me that shit'_ to his strange, stilted body language.

Blue squawks at him, ready to hunt. She's not sleepy at all.

* * *

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	11. Pt 11

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* * *

Blue isn't happy when Alpha puts Delta and Echo onto the metal thing's flat back.

She's even less happy that they don't wake up while he does it.

She's _extremely_ unhappy that the prey helps Alpha move them.

It's the familiar prey, the prey that sometimes touches her and has been around the pack since the nest, but it's still prey. Prey-with-fang. Blue stalks him when he edges into the nest. Alpha stands from checking the toothmarks on Delta in order to put himself between the prey and Blue, but she drops into a crouch, her chest low to the ground and foreclaws spread wide. Her mouth slowly gapes open, and she rolls her tongue in a low rattle-hiss combining threat and eagerness to pounce.

Alpha uses the calm-cry and _'Back off'_ signal a lot, keeping between her and the prey. It's very frustrating. Blue snarls her anger that he's in the way and trumpets, calling him to hunt with her. The prey's eyes are round and white against the dark of its face. Alpha's hand is up in the flat, strict tenseness that's bared teeth and snapping. She lashes her tail and steps to the side, eyeing him angrily as she attempts to go around him. He sidesteps to follow, never breaking eye contact.

 _'Back off.'_

 _'Back off.'_

 _'Back off.'_

The prey doesn't look away from her for a second as it bends to fumble for the skin-and-sticks thing Alpha dropped. Blue doesn't care what it's doing with the thing, shaking it out and laying it flat on the floor, but she cares quite a bit that the prey's doing it beside Delta. She mock-charges, angry and frantic to scare it off, to make it run so she can chase it down and kill it, but Alpha gets in her way. He steps right over Delta, eyes narrow as he steps into the path of her charge.

She either breaks off or confronts him. It doesn't feel right, she doesn't _want_ to, but claws scratch ruts in the floor as she stops, screeching her frustration at him. Attacking Alpha feels more wrong than letting the prey touch her sibling, but just barely. A tiny niggling doubt gnaws on her rage toward him. This is a familiar prey. It has touched them before. It hasn't hurt them, even though it's a prey-with-fang. It often stands beside Alpha. It sometimes feeds the pack.

It's prey, but Blue is an intelligent predator. She looks at it and hesitates.

Alpha waits. The prey sweats, crouched down beside Delta.

Blue hisses and claws the air, threat-displaying, but they don't react. She's bluffing, but Alpha doesn't flinch. His hand stays up, his eyes steady. He's not giving her an opening, and without a weakness to bulrush, she's left with nothing but teeth snapping at her until she's the one who backs off.

The blue-marked raptor bares her teeth but turns her head away.

Alpha doesn't turn his back, but he sinks down, hands sliding back to work under Delta's limp body. The prey cautiously reaches forward to grab her as well. Between them, they roll her over onto the sticks-and-skin bundle. The prey never looks away from Blue. Blue shrieks a hunting cry, tensing to spring.

"Blue!"

Her head jerks up. Alpha's up, the flat of his hand warding her away, the other hand chitter-clicking, _'Eyes on me.'_ She curls her lip. His hand cuts the air - _'Back. Off.'_ \- and she sullenly subsides, turning her head away again.

" **Blue.** "

There's bared teeth in how he growls her name. He's glaring at her when she gives him a brief glance, and her head ducks slightly.

That's the opening he was waiting for, and she knows it. Alpha straightens from his tense crouch, hand going down and tension leaving his foreclaws. He resettles, standing with his feet together, and looks at her evenly over his hand. He's in control, here. He's telling her to stand down, and she can't get to the prey unless she goes through him.

Reluctant, she takes a step back and purrls. Fine. She won't attack the prey, but she's not happy about it.

He waits a minute, then happy-barks, ' _That's good, that's damn good.'_

She grumbles, whirling to pace. Her killing claws click along an invisible line on the floor, a line she won't cross. Big gold eyes watch the prey sidelong. It stares at her and sweats, fear-stink wet on its skin. So easy to run down. She remembers that.

Alpha eyes her just as hard as he steps to the side and kneels down to reach back to pick up the sticks. The prey eases around, careful to keep Alpha in the way as Blue snorts, head jerking about. Alpha clears his throat. She peels her lip up but stays where she is.

When they stand up, Delta swings between them, and Blue blinks. They hold the sticks and back toward the metal thing carrying Delta on the soft skin.

Blue follows them, ready to dart past Alpha and bring the prey down the moment Alpha blinks.

He doesn't blink.

They slide her sleeping sibling onto the flat back of the metal thing. Blue growls, jigging in place. She doesn't know what to do. The prey reaches onto the metal creature's back and slides another bundle of sticks and skin off it. Alpha chatters to him, and they chitter continually as they walk along the wall, always facing Blue. She sees what they're doing, but Alpha stays in the way. She shifts her weight, tail stock still for once as she tries to decide if she should jump up onto the metal thing's back with Delta or advance to hiss threat at the prey daring to touch Echo. It's helping Alpha roll her sibling on onto the skin.

Blue can't make up her mind, so she ends up standing there in the middle of the nest growling, torn between her choices. She's not as surprised this time when they lift her sibling between them and take her to the metal creature. She doesn't like it, but it's vaguely comforting that at least now her siblings are sleeping near each other again.

The prey backs out of the nest and toward the snout of the metal thing, eyes on her. She champs her teeth at it. Alpha closes a door on the metal thing's flat back like the ready-cage doors, only shorter. Blue can jump over it.

She would, except Alpha is calm-crying at her. He knows what to do. He is pack. She is pack. They are pack.

Blue whines uneasily.

The metal thing roars, startling her. She jumps back, across the nest, and squalls threat-to-pack.

But Alpha is by the roaring metal thing. He isn't hurt. Maybe it isn't a threat. He's calm-crying at her, not warning her of danger.

She's used to the loud noises from metal things. She's just easily surprised. Smart as a raptor is compared to most animals, she's still an animal. Right now, she's an animal running on not enough food or rest, strung out from caring for her wounded siblings, and hiding in dangerous territory. Blue stays across the nest, eyes dilated and foreclaws flexing. Her eyes flick from Alpha to the metal thing.

Her nostrils flare.

A raptor's sense of smell outstrips any other dinosaur on the island. She smells prey, prey-with-fangs, Alpha, Alpha's fang, the metal thing, her siblings. She smells meat and blood. She smells the water at the end of the street.

She smells Other. She smells Other, and even as she smells her, a roar shakes the walls up and down the street. Alpha whips around, barking panic, warning danger with his tone even if she doesn't know what he chitters. The prey outside yell, and fangs crack.

Blue _screams_ a high descending snarl of attack and sprints out of the nest in a blur of blue-marked rage to defend the pack.

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	12. Pt 12

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Fangs snap from further down the street.

Blue streaks out of the nest, knocking Alpha aside with her shoulder as she squeezes through the gap between metal thing and wall. She fully expects him to turn and run beside her. The pack is in danger, and it never occurs to her to do anything besides rushing to defend her siblings. It's a reaction without option. Visceral _threat-to-pack_ danger triggers a switch in her mind that eliminates choice. It's blind loyalty, the kind of relentless drive that will pit her against the big Other and get her killed, but her brain isn't wired for self-preservation when the pack is threatened.

That is the loyalty of raptors. Running away literally doesn't cross her mind.

The Other roars, and big teeth snap above the sharp crack of prey-fangs. At the speed Blue sprints out of the nest, she blows past the prey standing beside the metal creature's snout and curves to run down the street, chest low to the ground and foreclaws tensed. The distinctive stuttering snarl of a hunting raptor challenges the Other.

The street around her is empty, cold, and she falters. Uncertainty skids her to a stop. Her head whips around, searching for her pack.

She doesn't know how to be alone. Blue will defend her pack by herself, but she doesn't know how, and she isn't ready to do so. Where is Alpha? He should be at her side, but he isn't, and it's _wrong_.

The prey snap their fangs and yell at the Other. Blue smells blood and burnt skin. White-blue light flashes repeatedly, crackling, and a waft of air stings her nose each time. The Other shakes off the shocks and roars, growing angry. Hunger drew her to the prey-with-fangs at first, but Blue can smell the Other's hate of the fangs. The blue-marked raptor takes two quick steps back, head raised high on her neck and turning every which way as she stares at the fight. She's not sure where to attack. There are so many prey-with-fangs, and so little cover. Charging in by herself will expose her to the whole herd.

The Other chomps one of the prey, and her huge head shakes, sending the prey all around her into a renewed frenzy. Shouting, so much shouting, a confusion of snapping fangs, milling prey, and a door slams behind Blue.

She whirls, killing claws tapping into the ground and growling, teeth bared. There is prey inside the metal thing's head, making it roar to life. Blue thrusts her head forward, foreclaws coming up. What is the prey doing?

Then Alpha leaps off the metal thing, off of its flat back where her siblings sleep. Blue trumpets to him, summoning him to hunt beside her, and this time he responds. He runs toward her, fang in his hands, and Blue's neck draws back into a tense S-shape as she recognizes it. Her jaw drops open, and her pupils dilate in fierce excitement.

Yes!

Killing claws tear the ground, wrenching her around to face the Other. Her foreclaws spread. Her tail lashes, and she leans forward, mouth wide open in preparation to bite. She's ready to run. Alpha will pass her as she passed him a moment ago, and she will follow. He will lead the hunt.

"Ho!"

Blue howls her readiness as Alpha calls his _'Stop; pay attention'_ cry. Yes, start together, run together, attack together. Pack defends pack. He'll give the _'Hunt, attack'_ whistle, like he did when he hunted the not-Alpha with Delta and Echo. He'll attack from that side, and she'll take the other, and they'll split the herd into disoriented chaos as they cut through. She's waiting, she's ready, and he will -

He stops in the middle of the street, looks along his fang, and it snaps.

Another roar rocks the street.

Blue straightens, jaw relaxing as she blinks.

The blood-smell thickens. The Other turns her head to roar absolute fury at Alpha, who has bitten her shoulder from across the crossroad. The prey-herd closes in, zapping at her legs and sides, trying to take her down.

Blue dances gleefully, foreclaws up as she hisses back at the big Other. The blue-marked raptor's neck is still drawn back, tensed and prepared to lunge forward, but she's not attacking. She turns a quick circle, tailtip whiffing through the air over Alpha's head as she moves closer, close enough that they're side-by-side. She sees the flicked motion of him glancing sidelong at her, but he just sights down his fang.

It snaps again. The Other turns her full attention toward them, roaring fury.

Now he's done it. The Other's mad enough to ignore the prey-with-fangs at her feet, now. The prey-with-fangs scatter from under giant feet. Those that don't run are mushed meat. Blue hisses, legs slowly bending as the Other shakes off the prey herd and starts to charge.

The blue-marked raptor snaps at Alpha without looking away from the Other. The bite doesn't even come close to connecting, but it's not meant to. It's hunt-language. He's already moving away from her as he should, responding to the cue as one of her siblings would, and she rattles savage approval deep in her throat. In that moment, Alpha's not so different. He's not-the-same, prey and pack, but he's moving in perfect coordination with her.

They split apart. Blue takes a step for every step he takes, timing her pace to his so they're directly across from each other. The Other can only chase one of them this way. The other will be free to attack.

Clever Alpha, to think of what she didn't. She knows what he's doing now that she sees it happening, but it didn't occur to her to set a trap to separate the threats-to-pack. There are too many threats-to-pack in one area, but he's bringing the Other to them.

She hisses loudly, baring teeth and spreading her foreclaws to get the Other's attention. Alpha's slower than her without his metal runner, but he can bite from a distance. Blue will be the lure, the noisy bait the prey looks at while the pack attacks from either side, except the prey is Other and Alpha can fight on the ground while she leaps up onto the Other's back. Afterward, the prey-herd can be dealt with.

They are pack. They defend pack. Pack is together.

Blue crouches further, ready for Alpha's whistle.

Except he pivots, sprinting toward the metal thing, which roars aggressively as it jolts into a slow run. Blue alarm-calls, popping upright in shock. What is he _doing?_

Her head twitches back and forth between the running metal creature and oncoming Other. A roar thunders threat at the fleeing metal thing, and her sleeping siblings are on the flat back. Blue's foreclaws spread, chest lowering and neck drawing back as her head whips back toward the Other. She screeches defiance. The Other twists her head through an earth-shaking roar, and Blue darts forward, shrieking challenge. She's alone, but she has no other option but attack.

Protect the pack. It's not a choice.

Alpha snags the side of the metal thing's back, jumping to put one foot up on it and cling with a hand, and he warn-howls, "Ho!"

 _'Stop; pay attention'_

Blue screeches, stopping so suddenly she almost trips over her own feet. Conflict swamps her. Threat-to-pack means attack-defend-protect but _pack_ calls her. Alpha should be beside her but _pack_ is accelerating away. Her pack is defenseless, the Other is charging, and Alpha has abandoned her!

Everything is wrong, and she doesn't know what to do.

"Blue!"

She looks back, and he barks a familiar chitter. His fist drops, hand opening. She knows this command. She _knows_ it, and out of nowhere, she knows what to do.

The metal thing and Alpha and the pack on the metal thing's back align with the training-game call in a brilliant moment of _thought._ Blind loyalty relents, allowing her to see the choice she couldn't make on her own.She must defend the pack, except the pack is _leaving_.

Blue _isn't_ alone. Alpha hasn't abandoned her. He is pack, they are pack, and Alpha tells her, _'Go!'_

She listens.

Teeth snap closed a second too late. The blue-marked raptor has twisted around to race after the truck, even her tail slipping from danger. The Other is far too close, but only for a few seconds. A big head swings, trying to hit her, knock her to the ground, but Blue swerves. She ducks under the Other so fast all that hits her is hot panting breath and bellowed frustration, loud enough her head hurts. Another swing, passing close. The skin on her back twitches from hot air and brushed skin, but she's already pulling ahead. A T-Rex is fast, but a raptor is much, much quicker.

Blue sprints in a squawking blur after her pack. They're already out of danger. The metal creature can run faster than the Other, and Alpha has his fang. He calls for her, but his eyes are on the Other. Watching her back. Watching out for the pack.

Heavy footsteps chase them, but not for long.

A frustrated roar is the last Blue hears from the Other as the pack races away.

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	13. Pt 13

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* * *

The metal thing can run faster than her, which Blue finds annoying. She puts her head down into a stubborn sprint, stuttering a snarl as she gets close enough to jump.

It accelerates.

She shrills complaint at Alpha, but he's busy climbing along the metal creature's side. He opens a door in its head and vanishes inside, and Blue coughs low, rough protest. No, stay in sight! She's not ready to let her pack leave her sight, not ready at all.

His arm reappears immediately, waving. It's not quite a brief moment of speaking eye contact from a sibling as they run together, turning their heads to give the rattling call that tells her where they are around her, but he's not-the-same. He's Alpha, parent and prey, not a sibling. She rattles her distinctive call at him, trying to trigger his own chitter-click response.

He fails to respond properly. Blue clicks at him, speeding up. She wants to see him, make eye contact. It's difficult to understand his weird sounds without seeing how he moves his hands and head. The metal thing coughs a deep sound, shudders, and pulls a bit further ahead. Alpha's hand waves again. She shrills at him, annoyed at his speed but not upset. She's used to him being in or around the metal things, although his runner was new during the hunt for not-Alpha. The runner was a metal thing that let the pack see and hear him clearly while they ran together. She huffs irritation at the much large metal creature he's in, now.

Her sleeping siblings are on the flat back of this metal creature, however. It has its uses.

It slows slightly. Blue shrieks a hunting cry and races after it, mouth dropping open in eager readiness to pounce. Her chest is low to the ground, foreclaws curled under and tail up to balance every running step. Now _she's_ the faster one!

Alpha's head appears as the metal thing slows to take a turn. "Blue!"

She was darting along the inside of the turn, taking advantage of the jungle the metal thing's too big to crash through. She's aiming toward the prey sitting inside the metal creature's head. Wide white eyes stare at her from the prey's dark face. It's scared of her. It should be. The metal thing can't protect prey from her.

Alpha's waving hand catches her eye as he shouts, but the chitter-click from his hand is what calls to her, _'Eyes on me.'_ It's the call-sound, familiar enough from training-games, and it was what she waited for while running. He's leaning out the door, deliberately being noisy and big to catch her attention. This is more than just checking position on the pack as they run. It's out of the usual context.

It doesn't take much for her to work out what it means in this context. They've never run like this, a hunt that's not a hunt, but the chitter-click and beckoning hand is like one of her siblings catching the scent. She knows what he wants.

 _'Follow,'_ the chitter-click says to her. _'Follow me.'_

He knows where the metal creature is going, where they're going. He wants her to follow him as he followed the pack during the hunt.

Blue's neck coils back as if she's about to leap. The prey leans away, a hand coming up as if to block her, but when she thrusts her head forward, it's to release a triumphant bugle. She knows!

Pleased with herself, she swerves back onto the road, cutting across to run on Alpha's side of the metal thing. She gains ground even running on the outside of the turn. The metal thing has to slow a lot to turn. She'll remember that. Chase the metal creatures down straights, keeping behind them until they're forced to change direction, _then_ attack.

For now, she runs alongside it, pulling up near its snout. Alpha swings back inside, closing the door. He looks down at her as she tilts her head to look up at him, rattle-calling to him. He happy-barks his ' _That's good, that's damn good'_ cry back and slaps the flat of his hand on the metal thing's flank.

Blue flinches away from the bang, swerving off the road into the ferns. It sounds too much like the prey-with-fangs.

Alpha snorts amusement at her. She gronks back at him, cranky, effortlessly leaping a fallen tree. The metal thing is speeding up again as it runs down the straight road, and she shrills her complaint at Alpha. Slow down!

Raptors are amazing animals, high calorie-burning hunters with the endurance for overtaking prey with longer legs, but they pay for the chase and their speed quickly as their bodies consume energy, wringing reserves dry. They're not wolves. They're not built to lope for days, running their prey into the ground. Blue's underfed, unrested, and stressed. Another running hunt like their last one on top of three days spent on edge will exhaust her to punch-drunk stumbling. She's already breathing in huge gulps, the humid air rushing out in hot blasts. It's doing little to cool her down. The tired acid burn in her legs is mounting fast, and she's flagging fast as she burns her limited energy.

Alpha calls to her, chitter-clicking, _'Eyes on me.'_

Blue growls, swerving back onto the road beside the metal creature's tail. He peers back at her, which is at least eye contact. He's learning. Gathering herself, foreclaws drawn in tight and neck pulling back, the blue-marked raptor drops her jaw and screes as she throws herself forward. Her legs hurt, the swollen hot patch of the unhealed bruise on her side makes deep breaths painful, but Alpha calls.

 _'Follow,'_ he calls. _'Follow me.'_

She will. She does. They are pack. Her pack is in and on the metal thing. She will follow it wherever it goes.

They break from the jungle into the sudden clearing of a prey-area, saturated with prey-smell. Sunlight blinds her for a moment, but she can smell. It goes right to her stomach, twisting knots of hunger up inside her as starved muscle demands fuel. Blue wants to turn, wants to hunt the prey she smells sweating nervously inside the flimsy buildings where more metal things live. She needs to eat. Her body demands it. Her pack needs food, too, but right now her drained reserves are trampling all other thought.

The prey hasn't fled. They are hiding, hoping she runs by, but she can smell them. She sees it as she slows, head coming up to take in the signs of hasty retreat. They're in the buildings, but she can see doors. She knows how to open doors. The walls are thin. She can break them like the cardboard boxes the pack played with in the nursery, jumping in and out as Alpha snorted at them.

Break in, kill, feast. Bring fresh meat to the pack.

Blue slows further, turning her all-out run into a lope that curves toward the nearest building. Her harsh snorting becomes a trumpet call, once, twice, summoning the pack to hunt.

* * *

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	14. Pt 14

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

The metal thing honks.

It's a _loud_ honk.

Long, loud, rude, and accompanied by Alpha bellowing, " **Blue!** " It's his biting voice, the one that says he's fed up with a hatchling turning the nursery into a racetrack or chewing holes in the soft skins he wears on his feet. There's a lot of _'Back off!'_ snapping teeth at her in the tone.

Blue nearly stumbles, head popping up in shock. Her foreclaws drop slack, and she turns her head to stare, surprised.

Alpha yells, head and arm outside the metal thing's head as he whacks on its flank, causing yet more confusing noise. The banging is harsh, metallic. It reminds her of prey-fangs, and even knowing Alpha is making the noise, she flinches. The metal creature revs, reversing further into the clearing and roaring. It's loud and angry. It makes her anxious for her siblings. They're not waking up. Alpha is barking at her, the metal thing is angry, and Blue is halfway across the prey-area from the pack.

Overhead, the gray clouds of a tropical shower cover the sun. Thunder peals, sudden and close, and Blue flinches again, sidestepping.

Everything's unfamiliar, strange, frightening.

She shies, turning a tight circle. She bobs her head, cocking it toward Alpha, then toward the buildings. The prey inside are nervous, afraid, rustling about. She wants to hunt them, but Alpha is snapping teeth at her in his weird way. He doesn't want her to split off and hunt alone. He wants her to stay with the pack.

Her gut twists, hunger painful in her stomach as she flares her nostrils, dragging in thick, humid air. It's rich with prey-scent. More than that, however, she can smell fangs inside with the prey. They're dangerous. She doesn't know how to hunt alone. She doesn't know what to do. If Alpha won't hunt beside her, and the prey have fangs…

Her memories remind her that Alpha provides. Alpha has always provided. Alpha will provide again, if she trusts him and follows where he leads, staying with the pack.

But for how long? She's so _hungry_ , and the prey is _right there_. Her stomach gnaws her, urging her to hunt, to kill.

The blue-marked raptor turns her head back and forth, unable to decide, but the truck keeps honking. Thunder booms a second time. Rain begins to pitter-patter on the dense foliage over their heads. The humidity is stifling.

Alpha calls her name again, lifting his hand when she looks at him. "Ho!"

 _'Stop; pay attention.'_

She freezes, only her tail moving. It lashes behind her as she stares expectantly. Stern, narrowed eyes holds her gaze. Alpha knows what he's doing.

Blue reluctantly purrls.

"Go!" His hand drops, opening, and his other hand chitter-clicks, _'Eyes on me.'_

 _'Follow.'_

The metal thing starts to run forward again. Blue ducks her head and slinks after it, a bit sullen, a little chastised.

And soaking wet, as the rain pours down.

Blue really doesn't like water.

* * *

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	15. Pt 15

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

She knows where they're going.

Excited, Blue creels and puts on a burst of speed, darting up beside the metal thing. Alpha looks down at her through the rain, his head fuzz plastered flat and dripping into his eyes. She cocks her head to look up at him, and he wipes the drizzling water off his face, blinking. Dropping her jaw, she rolls her tongue in an extended, chattering purrl. She knows where he's taking them. Good Alpha.

He hesitates, then raises and drops his hand. ' _Go.'_

The metal thing slows, allowing her cut in front of it. Having it roaring on the tip of her tail makes the skin on the back of her neck twitch, but Alpha is calling softly after her under the sound of rain and metal. It's his encouraging sound, the _'Good girl'_ trill. Blue stutters a hunt-cry and lowers her chest, tail slapping the metal creature's snout as she leads the way.

Renewed excitement lets her ignore the exhaustion-pain burning in her legs, the throbbing of the bruise on her side as she breathes hard and fast. She splashes through a puddle, ducks through the inside of a curve, swerves around a tree, and emerges on the road much further ahead of the metal thing. Much better. She glances back, and Alpha smacks his hand on the metal creature's flank. It sounds like approval.

She huffs, cocks her head, and twists back straight in a boneless thrust into running. She can smell the walls. She can smell the den, and pack territory. At the end of the road is _safe._

No Other. Not even any prey-with-fangs, oddly. There's old blood-smell, the rotted scent of carrion, but the freshest prey scent is empty. The prey were here recently, but they're gone. The walls smell abandoned. It's reassuring. The pack won't have to defend their territory against newcomers trying to take over the den.

Raptors don't belong in captivity, but that's where the pack was raised. Looking through the bars at the wide open world they couldn't run through, the prey they couldn't hunt, of course they wanted out. Every instinct undomesticated animals have tells them that they belong free.

The velociraptor paddock has more security than anywhere but Margaritaville, except with the constant threat of killer animals instead of drunken fistfights or otherwise misbehaving park guests. Raptors are intelligent enough to be escape artists of the first degree. The four hatchling raptors got out of the nursery multiple times, and as juveniles, they drove Asset Containment half-mad as they figured out doors knobs, latches, even locks. By the time Blue reached full adult size, her juvenile antics were the cautionary tales told to new paddock personnel, and the doors were opened by buttons claws and snouts couldn't push correctly.

ACU and the paddock team fine-tuned the paddock to erase any opportunity to get loose. Escape attempts were caught before they got too far. It took Hoskins to bypass paddock security and release the raptors.

Until that happened, the pack sniffed out escapes as excitement and fun but simply accepted the walls as normal. It was a carefully constructed, carefully _taught_ normal, taking advantage of their ability to layer learned behavior over instinct. Built up in their mind through time and experience is the concept of the paddock as home. The raptors always knew there was more beyond the bars, they could _smell_ it, but the den and pack territory were inside the walls.

Alpha is central to the normalization of captivity.

Alpha is not-the-same but _just similar enough_ , inserted into the pack from the very beginning, and they adapted to him. They formed their pack around him, and everything he did in that pivotal position cemented their trust further. He led them in everything, a stable part of every single aspect of their lives. He was there when they hatched. He checked their activity level and appetites, their health and moods. He was there to introduce them to the nursery, then the paddock. He took them into the ready-cages and soothed them while they were held still by metal and walls.

He's their parent, their alpha, their guide and trusted provider. He's their one constant through any and all changes.

Unfortunately, the events of three days ago turned the artificial, walled-in world of the paddock on its head. The raptors learned all sorts of new things overnight about the world outside the walls, and it opened up their minds. They learned that food doesn't always come from Alpha at regularly scheduled intervals, and that live prey isn't just a special treat for training games. They learned that live prey is easy to kill, and prey-with-fangs are dangerous but also easy to kill. They learned how to smash through windows and attack prey inside metal things. They learned that Alpha doesn't have to be there for things to happen.

They also learned that the outside world is painful, dangerous, and frightening. Blue strongly associates long grass with the blast of air and light that killed Charlie, and prey-smell on roads with the smell of infection and the dull pulse of pain in her side. When Alpha wasn't there, things happened, but those things weren't necessarily good.

The pack spent three days missing a major part of their hierarchy, the part that has always cared for them, and Blue can't fill Alpha's role. She tried, but Alpha's not-the-same, and that difference is what the pack needs.

Of course, she doesn't really think of it that way. She's only an animal, however smart she is, and there are too many steps to a logical conclusion. Her mind strains to wrap around the unformed thought. Experience, and learned, positive associations reinforce the nebulous concept, bridging over the hows and whys she can barely imagine, much less comprehend.

Old memories feed her trust. In the back of Blue's memory, stinging wounds from rough play numb and stop bleeding. Alpha rumbles at her during the long sleepy dark where the little pains numb. When she wakes, the wounds have chemical stench stitched in narrow bars across them, and prey-scent covers the pack. They rub each other and lick the bars in their skin until they smell of _pack_ again, and the pains ebb away.

Blue doesn't understand the hows or whys, but she understand that the wounds heal as above them on the catwalks, Alpha watches over them.

The outside world is _interesting._ It's new, and it calls to Blue's instinct. She wants to hunt, to explore, and to be free, but when Blue streaks into the clearing around familiar walls, she _thinks._ Instinct falls before learned behavior. The walls awaken in her a longing that the jungle can't compete against.

She's spent three days in the outside world, and it's _miserable._ She's been alone, her pack has been helpless, and Alpha has been missing. Alpha, who's brought them back to home territory, back to the den, back to the walls and the crosswalks overhead, where he will stand and watch over them again.

Blue recognizes the walls as what she was taught to see them as, and she croons her relief, slowing to a tired lope.

The metal creature roars into the clearing after her, and Blue swings her head around to bark happily at Alpha.

He happy-barks back at her. _'That a girl.'_

He's jumping out of the metal creature before it stops running, jogging past her toward the walls. The rain soaks his fur and skins. She creels _pack_ at him. He slows, keeping his head turned toward her when she cocks her head, nose following him, but he only raises a hand partway to acknowledge her. She wants to see what he's doing at the wall, but the metal thing is roaring, doing a strange lunge. It pulls about, putting its back to her, then to the wall. She blinks at it.

The wall moves.

Blue's head snaps around, and she squawks alarm. Alpha calm-cries back at her, ' _Easy, easy.'_

The metal thing backs toward her, and she side-steps nervously. She can jump up on its flat back with her sleeping siblings, but she's not sure she wants to. It gets closer, and she backs toward Alpha. He calm-cries again.

The wall is sliding aside. She can see familiar trees inside. Her head goes up, and she stares through the door, the very tip of her tail ticking. It's not where she belongs, not according to the pull of new scents and sounds and the jungle around her, but it's where she was raised. The outside world is full of prey and excitement, the freedom to run and hunt. It's also pain, fear, and the hot, sick scent of her siblings trapped in dangerous territory, undefended on their own as she struggles to bring them food and water.

The walls are den and safety. She wants to be here. This is home territory.

The metal creature crowds her. Her head whips back around to confront it, and she crouches, ready to attack. Maybe she can bite one of its feet to ward it away. She doesn't want it in pack territory, and she really doesn't like it snorting hot, burnt breath at her like this.

"Blue!" She hisses threat at the metal thing, but Alpha calls her. She twitches her head aside to look back, and he puts his hand up. His hand chitter-clicks, ' _Eyes on me.'_

She hesitates, tail lashing. Rain drips into her eye, and she snorts, abruptly shuddering into a full-body shake that sprays water everywhere.

He walks backward, through the door. She's never seen that door open. She didn't know there was a door in the walls. He calls her again, calling her to follow, but Blue looks between the door and the metal thing backing toward her. It snorts hot air in her face. She growls and snaps at it, teeth loudly scraping off its metal tail.

It stops, and prey yells from nears its head. Alpha shouts back. They're communicating, in their odd way.

Blue straightens, suspiciously peering over the metal thing's back. She can just barely see over the low door to the creature's head. The prey inside it is looking toward Alpha, but it sees her and pulls back out of sight. She curls her lip, rattling a snarl, and sinks down. It can't hide from her.

Her foreclaws come up as she starts to stalk around the metal thing, hunting.

" **Blue…** "

That's a _'Don't give me that shit'_ growl, full of bared teeth and exasperation.

The blue-marked raptor chirps, head coming up. She tilts it toward Alpha as she purrls her innocence. Who, her? She hasn't done anything.

He points a stern foreclaw at her. ' _Eyes on me,'_ he chitter-clicks with his hand.

Her nostrils flare, wistfully scenting prey so close, so easy to hunt, but she reluctantly turns toward Alpha.

On the line between inside and out, she stops short. Standing tall, Blue turns from Alpha to scan the jungle beyond the clearing. She knows what's outside the walls, now. Alpha calls her, but it's a two-way pull. Alpha is in front of her (' _Follow me,'_ he says, and in the back of her mind, she remembers safety and warm hands), but instinct holds her back.

Confused, she turns her head to look inside the walls. She squawks. It's a small sound, a lonely, inquisitive ' _Here?'_ and her head cocks, listening for Alpha, for her siblings. For pack.

She does not know how to be alone.

"Blue," Alpha coaxes, and Blue whips her head around. She stares at him, unblinking as rain stings her eyes, and he holds out warm hands she knows so well.

Alpha opened the door for the pack, for her. They are pack, and loyalty brings her home again.

Blue walks through the door, and she is not alone.

* * *

 **[* * * * *]**

 **End**

 **[* * * * *]**

* * *

 **A/N:** And that's that. I have a couple other things I'd like to write, probably using the opposite perspective (mostly Owen, intermittent Blue), but this story got where I wanted it to end. I've got no plan for when/if a sequel will happen.


	16. Gateway: 1

**Title:** Gateway

 **Warning:** Spoilers for Jurassic World, obviously. Discussion of (graphic?) injuries, and the viewpoint of a carnivore.

 **Rating:** PG-13

 **Continuity:** Jurassic World

 **Characters:** Blue, Delta, Echo, Owen Grady, Barry

 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

 **Motivation (Prompt):** It was a vague plan at some point to start a sequel to Boundaries called Gateway. Obviously it hasn't happened, but one of the voter incentive ficlets (for Texas) was written for it anyway.

* * *

 **[* * * * *]**

* * *

She won't eat.

Of all the things they expect when they get Blue into the pen, her refusing to eat isn't one of them. "Maybe it's 'cause the pigs aren't good," Barry says, but he shakes his head as he says it. If a pig's moving, the raptors will chase it.

The damn InGen goons were the only ones who died out here at the pen, but the paddock team cleared out of the bunker the second Owen radioed in an all-clear. Nobody thought to put the bait on auto-feed as they left. The pig currently in the pen is dehydrated and eating all the silage it can find. Blue chases it around the pond every time she takes a lap around the paddock, but she hasn't killed it. That's what's confusing Owen and Barry.

"I step in there, she goes for my throat. A pig gets nothing?" Barry shakes his head again. "She's smart. Too smart. She knows."

"How the Hell would she know we tranqued the pig?" Owen squints through the bars. "We use the slow-release stuff all the time on them. She should be used to the scent."

"She knows the scent! She knows, and she's not falling for it," Barry insists.

It's a leap of logic, one Owen's not sure she's actually made. Connecting a pig hunt to falling asleep in an hour is a long connection to make. Even if she's made it, the pig's moving prey. Velociraptors can't resist hunting moving prey. Pigs are a treat, the pudgy feeders even more so than the lean runners he uses to train the pack, but a treat is a treat because moving prey is so rare. He's never wanted the raptors to associate food with movement. He wanted them to hesitate when confronted by a human being.

That plan went out the window. "Goddamn Hoskins."

"You said it."

Owen huffs, standing closer to the bars than Barry's comfortable with. "Give it twenty minutes, and that dosage'll kill the pig. Then she definitely won't eat it."

"She's starving."

"She'll hold out eating a dead pig if she refuses to eat a live one." He turns and leans back against the bars, watching Barry's eyes instead of the inside of the paddock. It's a bad idea, but no less than anything else he's done today. "Vet's set up. We have to get the girls in. Suggestions?"

Barry's eyes are very white against the dark of his face, whiter yet when slowly rounding. "Owen, you're crazy!" He lunges forward, but Owen's already stepped away from the bars.

"Hello, Blue," he says before he turns, and a trilling snort puffs air on the back of his neck. He's just out of reach of claws pushed through the bars, and he knows it. She knows it. He assumes that's why she doesn't try reaching for his gut, but maybe not. Her face isn't pressed to the bars, either, and she didn't warble an attack cry when rushing the gate. She simply saw him and came in close.

Her head cocks from side to side, eyeing him.

"Easy, Blue."

She blinks slowly. After a second, she purrls low in her throat.

"Tell me you're not going to do something else crazy," Barry says. He knows the look on Owen's face too well. "You're a madman!"

"She's alone in there," Owen says, reaching out his hand but not getting into her range. He's not stupid. He's testing. "Pack animals aren't meant to be alone."

Her head cocks to follow the motion of his hand, and she purrls again, eye darting between hand and face. Sidling to the bars, she presses her side lightly to the gate and made a strange chirping noise, strange because Owen hasn't heard it in years. At least, not directed toward him. It's a sound he hears while walking the catwalks, usually while the pack's nesting down for the night. Her snout jerks in short, aborted motions he recognizes.

"Scritch scritch scratch," he says to her like he used to when she was a baby, knee height, and her eye dilates. The grooming motions pick up, her whole head bobbing at him. "Scratches, huh?"

"Madman," Barry mutters behind him, but Barry was here through the nursery days for half the pack. He knows their social behaviorisms as well as Owen. Moreover, he knows when his boss is going to do something nobody else would even dream of with velociraptors.

It's not that Owen trusts his position at the head of the pack. He just knows how lonely a single animal desperate for a pack can be, and Blue allowed him a lot more leeway when it used to be her alone in the paddock. He used to be her only company, her sole packmate, and now he is again.

She's tired, she's hungry, she can smell the rest of her pack, but she's trapped in the paddock by herself. Of course Blue's refusing to eat. She wants comfort more than she wants food or water.

"Back the truck up to the stall front," Owen says as he presses one of the control buttons. A door down the wall beeps, warning light flashing for a crew that isn't here. Blue's head jerks around. Her tail whips as she immediately takes off for the open door, and he thinks that her eagerness is telling. "I'll get her in." It isn't a single-man job, but he's not calling anybody else in until she's drugged and loaded for the vet centre.

Barry doesn't like it, but Barry hasn't liked much of anything today. He doesn't deny that Owen's made it work, however. "Take it we're not telling ACU you're going in the cage."

"I'm not going in the cage." Owen flashes his friend a daredevil smile. "She's coming out of the stall."

The roll of Barry's eyes is wonderfully illustrative. It writes epics on his opinion of Owen's state of mind. Here's a hint: it starts with 'c' and ends with 'razy'.

Blue is already banging around in the narrow corridor behind the chutes when Owen jogs over to key into the front cage. Her stall is closed, and she wants in, squawking irately at him from behind the doors. He spent so much time conditioning the pack to these things, getting them used to eating here, drinking here, being handled while muzzled, being comfortable while confined in the enclosed area of the stalls, and Hoskins probably ruined it all by being a massive dick. God, he hopes the raptors aren't going to associate all his training with that asshole.

Hitting the button beside Blue's stall, Owen waits until impatient growls and the screech of foreclaws on metal announce she's inside. Corridor door close, then unlatch the front hold. The sequence is routine.

The doors don't open further than the width of Blue's head without undoing a series of six deadlocks above and below the hold, but that doesn't mean she doesn't try to get through every time. Her shoulders slam into the inside of the doors, rocking the whole rig, and her jaws savage the air as she thrashes. It's a brief attack, but it makes Owen's heartrate jump every time with the sheer violence. The moment passes and she settles down, but an angry hiss warns away the muzzle descending on her from above.

"Hey, hey. Easy, Blue. Easy." Owen talks her through it as he always has. The muzzles are automated, clamping around her snout from above and holding her steady from below. She never likes to be restrained. Owen's never held that against her. "Shhhhh. It's okay. Nothing's going to happen this time." Still talking, he backs toward the front end of the cage. Blue growls challenge at the muzzle trying to pin her down, battering against the doors and stall, howling at the truck backing up against the front of the stall cage.

Owen fills a bucket with tropic-tepid water, tossing in a sponge and the astringent soap the vet supplied. Barry swings out of the truck to head toward the feeder pen behind the stalls. "A piglet's fine," Owen calls after him. He doesn't want her stuffing herself coming off a starvation diet.

Opening the cage door, he hefts the bucket up onto the truck bed and climbs up after it. The howling rage of a moment ago has become muffled growls at his back, but Blue goes silent, presumably watching him. Velociraptors _think_. It can be frightening how fast they work things out, but right now Owen wants Blue to use that intelligence. He deliberately doesn't look in her direction as he squeezes the sponge over Delta. Water patters down, sluicing the first layer of grunge away.

"This little piggy's drugged to the gills," Barry says a few minutes later. By then, Owen's started scrubbing at the unconscious velociraptor's head, cleaning away the caked blood and filth, and Blue's started a plaintive, trilling call asking for attention.

"Feed her. I'll finish this." Owen wrings out the sponge and starts dabbing at Echo. So much of the poor girl's skin is burnt, it's hard to tell what's safe to touch.

Blue's cries become much louder when Barry releases her muzzle for feeding, but she's not fighting to free herself anymore. And, more telling, she eats. Barry uses a butcher knife and the tongs to toss her hunks of fresh, bleeding, thoroughly tranquilizer-laced pig, and she catches it midair to snarf down. Gurgling snarls accompany each slightly too large chunk. Owen glances back in time to see her doing a vigorous head bob, snout pointed to the ceiling as she works her throat to get the meat down. Glarf glorph gobble goes the raptor.

Good. That's one thing taken care of. Owen keeps on with the washing. His hands travel in well-practiced paths over the raptors. He's done this many times: twice a week when it rains, three times when it doesn't. Predators smell. They reek of decayed meat, rotted blood, and whatever feces they've rolled in. Some are tidier than others, but not velociraptors. They keep their nests clean of detritus, or at least Owen's nursery teachings ingrained the habit into Blue, but they don't tongue-bathe. They groom with their teeth and claws, which doesn't do much for the smell.

It was something the original caretakers in Jurassic Park complained about, back with the first velociraptors. Owen decided, once upon a hatched egg, to tackle the smell problem through exterior means. Bath time became another opportunity for him to control and handle his pack. He got to check them over several times a week, conditioning them to obey certain cues.

Door open; go into the corridor. Stall door open; go into the chute. Front hold opens; put head through. Muzzle comes down; submit. Then and only then will food appear. Also, bath time.

Charlie loved baths. The others aren't quite so enthusiastic, but from the keening chatter Blue makes after the last piece of pig goes down, she wants bath time real bad this time around. Yeah, Owen bets she wants a bath. She's a lone pack animal, poorly groomed. The rest of her pack just got wiped down. She wants her turn with the alpha.

Barry walks out of the front cage as Owen jumps down, and Owen goes inside so Barry can lock the gate. "You sure about this?" he asks, and Owen shrugs with his eyebrows.

He's not sure, but he knows he's right. Dumping out the water in the corner grate, he fills up the bucket with soap and water again. Blue is jittering in her stall, head bobbing as she chirps and dances, clawing at the door.

"I'm about to do something monumentally stupid," he tells her as he steps to the side to reach her stall buttons. She rattles in her throat and twists to snap her jaws at him. It's not a serious killing bite, just the kind she turns on the rest of the pack, but it still makes him nervous. Taking a deep breath, he palms the last button in the panel.

Blue winces down, hissing warily as the muzzle structure lifts further up out of the way, clearing the door.

"Easy, Blue. That's right. Easy." Her attention snaps to him, the hand outstretched toward her, and she's as quick as ever. It doesn't look like the tranqs are kicking in yet. Hooo boy. He was hoping she'd be a little sleepy by now. "Alright. Let's do this."

Her head twitches, eye constantly moving as she takes in this sudden new thing that is Owen moving closer. Sudden and new, but he's touched her outside the cage now a couple of times. She's a fast learner, and she's smart, really smart.

Every tiny motion of her head makes his stomach jump, but he keeps his hand steady. Quiet and small, she purrls at him. When his hand touches pebbled skin, he lets himself smile in response. Just as slow, he reaches up above her head for the first of the deadbolts. She tenses at the scrape of metal.

"Easy, girl."

He's sweated through his shirt for probably the fourth time today by the time he's eased down into a crouch to reach the last deadbolt. Outside the cage, a constant stream of French prays for him to saints he's never heard of. Barry's not religious until he is. Owen gets that.

Blue shifts restlessly but has been remarkably tame. Maybe it's the sedatives hitting her system, or maybe the hawk-eyed attention meeting Owen's eyes means she's puzzling out what he's doing. He stands up slow but smooth and backs away out of her reach. Her head immediately pops up, affronted, and he whistles through his teeth.

 _Aaaaand we're moving._

She blinks at him. Moving?

Now that's she's alert, prepped and ready for it, he raises his hand up above shoulder height before dropping it. _Go_ , that signal tells her, and she steps forward on automatic. It's a beautiful sight, the perfect reaction of a well-trained animal, and Owen will slap palms with Barry over it later if he survives the fact that the fully grown velociraptor now in the front cage with him has suddenly realized she's loose.

She stops.

"You're fine, Blue, you're fine," he soothes, crouching just enough to fish the sponge from the bucket. It's a laughable weapon in the face of a raptor. He brandishes it anyway.

He doesn't credit it for why she doesn't attack him, but who knows. It probably helps. Dropping her head, she looks from side to side as if looking for the trap. Her nostrils flare to pull in a long breath. This is weird and new, and the last time something weird and new happened in this cage, she didn't like it.

This is where having the truck close to the bars helps. Blue casts Owen a faintly puzzled look and trots to the gate, squawking urgent summons. She can see Delta and Echo, she can smell them, but they don't move. They breathe long, deep breaths, sleeping in the truck bed, and that confuses and frightens her.

And into the path of her fear steps Owen, her alpha and protector. This is the role he wants her to view him in, and his lips thin to white as her head whips around. Her lip curls up into pig-bloodied snarl.

"Easy," he says, repeating and repeating, because she knows his voice. She knows him. He's security. He's reassurance. He's pack.

He's holding a sponge that smells like pack. She doesn't know...this. Not exactly. She doesn't know stalking across the cage at him, no bars between them or a chute hemming her in, but she knows the sponge. Her lip wrinkles up as she sniffs at it suspiciously, head cocked to keep his other hand in sight.

Owen strangles the primate terror trying to make him flee in the face of those bared teeth. Instead, he turns his outstretched hand upward. "Scritch scratch," he says as he used to.

Blue's skin shudders. It's a full-body muscle twitch as memory kicks her hard. Her head goes up as though he pulled her tail, and although the fear doesn't go away - he knows better than to trust a raptor - Owen relaxes a fraction.

"Scratches, Blue," he says, coaxing, and she chatters her teeth, rocking back and forth on her feet. Her killing claws don't tap, however. "Scritch scratch." The sponge moves in small circles her chin echoes, grooming motions half instinctual and half learned in the nursery sink.

Barry's prayer falters into disbelief when the blue-marked velociraptor turns sideways, the most nonhostile body language possible for a hunter like her. Raptors approach everything head-on, claws at the ready. This kind of behavior is passive, an invitation. Blue bobs her head at Owen, sidling toward him in nervous spurts, and her foreclaws are down in a display of no aggression whatsoever.

She wants to groom.

* * *

 **[* * * * *]**


End file.
